NLTP Bulletin

Welcome to the NLTP Bulletin, our newsletter with information about management of the current National Land Transport Programme (NLTP) and what we're working on for the development of the 2021-24 NLTP.

Indicative funding for continuous programmes

• Last week the Waka Kotahi Board approved the indicative funding allocations for continuous programmes in the 2021-24 NLTP. 
   
• Early this week, we sent you letters advising the indicative funding allocations. This was for local road maintenance, state highway maintenance, public transport and road safety promotions.
   
• Current revenue forecasts continue to present a constrained funding environment with all allocations at the lower limit of the activity classes. While we looked at a range of additional funding and/or financial options, the existing constraints remain. 
   
• Within these constraints, the Board has prioritised maintaining current services within continuous programmes although we have insufficient funds to fully meet this objective.
   
• In most cases we haven't been able to fund programmes of work at the full amounts requested. However, most of you will receive an increase in your allocation compared with the 2018-21 NLTP.
   
• There was a combined bid of $2.6 billion for local road maintenance, from a lower activity class limit of $2.0 billion.
   
• In public transport services, the amount was $1.4 billion, the activity class having a lower limit of $1.2 billion. 
   
• We prioritised our discretionary spend on maintenance for local roads, state highways and public transport services. These have received an increase to help maintain levels of service.
   
• The Board will confirm the final funding allocations when it adopts the 2021-24 NLTP in late August.
  
  Read the information sheet, Q&As and table of indicative allocations

End of financial year 2020/21 - claims processing

	We’re approaching the end of the financial year and would like to remind you of the process for submitting your final claims for the 2018-21 NLTP.    Our claims system in Transport Investment Online (TIO) will shut down for two weeks between Wednesday 14 July 2021 and Wednesday 28 July 2021 to process claims and carry over unspent allocations into the next financial year.   To give us time to process and authorise claims, and adjust Funding Assistance Rates (FARs), we're asking you to do the following by Wednesday 7 July 2021:  - Create your draft final claims in TIO and submit them as soon as possible.   - Submit any final claims for activities where adjustments need to be made to take account of FAR policy (e.g. Emergency Works or TEFAR for Low Cost Low Risk).  -  Submit any supplementary review requests. These will only be accepted for amounts less than $50,000 where final accrued expenditure has exceeded the remaining approved funds and the review request is supported by your Investment Advisor.   All final claims must be submitted in TIO by 5pm on Tuesday, 13 July 2021 for Investment Advisors to authorise by 10am the next day.   Annual Achievement Returns will be available in TIO on Thursday, 17 June 2021 and must be submitted by Friday, 16 July 2021.   We understand that the deadlines are very tight. To assist with meeting the deadlines you can submit claims based on accrued costs rather than invoiced costs. However, we would not expect material differences between accrued and actuals. See the guide for more detail about the end of year 2020-21 claims process and deadlines.

2021-24 NLTP - next steps

• Thank you for the considerable amount of work that went into submitting your final improvement bids in May.
   
• Investment Advisors are now reviewing all bid information, including Investment Prioritisation Method (IPM) assessments, before we begin the final moderation for improvement activities later this month.
   
• The deadline for final RLTPs to be submitted to Waka Kotahi is 30 June 2021 and the final 2021-24 NLTP will go to the Waka Kotahi Board for approval in August.
   
• We've now updated the claims and review modules in Transport Investment Online (TIO) and these are available for all your 2018-21 NLTP activities.
   
• We are in the final stages of testing a new geospatial module which will allow you to easily capture the exact location of your transport projects in a map in TIO.
   
• In June we’ll be user testing the module and will involve a number of councils representing different interests. We expect to release the module into TIO templates in July. We’ll provide more information and guidance in the coming months.

Interim funding for Improvements and Low Cost Low Risk

• Please let us know if you have any activities over $2 million that are not already committed, will start during July and August 2021 and will require funding approval.
   
• If you do have activities or programmes that fit the criteria above, please inform your investment adviser by the end of next week. 
   
• Funding for these activities will be considered and approved by the Waka Kotahi Board in late June.

Deaths and serious injuries forecasting tools

	Following on from the implementation of the Benefits Management Approach, we’re developing a suite of tools to help councils take a consistent, data driven approach to forecasting benefits through the benefit measures.   Using these tools will make it simpler to forecast measures. These can be used when completing business case benefit measure forecasts.   The first set of tools is for the deaths and serious injuries (DSI) measure – chosen first because improving safety on New Zealand roads is a priority for Waka Kotahi.   We’re running a pilot of the tools for the DSI measure from May to 13 August 2021. There is also a description of the forecasting methodology and FAQs available online.   We want to ensure these tools are useful, so any improvement ideas you have are welcome. Please email us - Investment.Benefits@nzta.govt.nz. See the new DSI forecasting tools

More information

For more information on the NLTP, you can visit our website or contact us online.