44 Bowen Street
Private Bag 6995
Wellington 6141
New Zealand
T 64 4 894 5400
F 64 4 894 6100
www.nzta.govt.nz
17 December 2024
Zach Blomby
[FYI request #29205 email]
REF: OIA-16949
Dear Zach
Request made under the Official Information Act 1982
Thank you for your email of 14 November to the Ministry of Transport requesting information about the
National Ticketing Solution (NTS) under the Official Information Act 1982 (the Act).
On 15 November 2024, the Ministry of Transport advised you that it was transferring your request to
NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA), under section 14 of the Act.
To provide you with some context, Auckland Transport (AT) has introduced contactless payments for
public transport services on its current (non-NTS) ticketing system as the first step before moving to
the NTS. AT has introduced contactless payments for public transport services as the first step in its
transition to the NTS. It has been developed in agreement with the NTS Programme and funded by
NZTA through a standard Funding Assistance Rate of 51 percent.
With the NTS due to be rol ed out across the country, this is the beginning of Auckland’s transition to
the NTS by the end of 2026, which wil bring additional benefits for Auckland travellers. Once Auckland
has ful y transitioned to the NTS, travel ers wil be able to use their Motu Move card.
I wil respond to each part of your request in turn.
When it was announced in 2022, the national single payment system for public transport was
going to cost 1.3 bil ion dollars and that the supplier was Cubic.
Is this stil accurate or have the costs or supplier changed? Please provide both original
costing estimates and current costing expectations if they are different.
The costs and supplier have not changed. The total cost of the NTS is $1.33 bil ion. This includes the
development and implementation of the system, and the first decade of operational costs once it is
live. The main supplier is Cubic Transportation Systems (Cubic).
Additionally, how much has the Auckland rol out of the program cost, originally estimated and
final cost of delivery?
AT budgeted $23 mil ion for the rol out of contactless payments in Auckland. 51 percent of that cost
wil come from the National Land Transport Fund, up to a maximum of $11.7 mil ion. As AT is
responsible for the development and delivery of its contactless payments upgrade, through its own
supplier, I recommend that you engage with AT if you have further questions about it.
The final cost for delivery of the project is $25.6 mil ion. NZTA has not increased its funding and the
additional $2.6 mil ion was funded by AT.
When announced in 2022, the system was said to al ow for concessions. Now when the
Auckland program is being rolled out, it specifical y does not have this functionality
The NTS / Motu Move wil include concessions once it is rolled out. When it is introduced in Auckland,
concessions and other fare products such as weekly caps wil be available as planned.
AT’s current contactless payments system has not been designed to take concession fares, and
customers using concessions need to continue using their AT HOP cards as normal. AT has a multi-
step ticketing transformation journey; this first step was to bring contactless payment to
Auckland public transport (PT), allowing users to adopt multiple ways of paying, improving the
flexibility and accessibility of PT for both customers, occasional users, and visitors to the city. It paves
the way for AT to move to NTS, where its customers can then benefit from the additional functionality
NTS/Motu Move wil provide, such as an account-based system that al ows concessions to be loaded
against credit cards.
If you have any questions about AT’s open loop system and contactless payments, including
concession fares, we suggest contacting AT directly by email to [email address].
Please provided al documents and emails between the supplier and ministry relating to
functionality of the system, including proposed and agreed functionality.
On 21 November 2024, NZTA contacted you seeking clarification of this part of your request, as it
contains no timeframe and is very broad in its scope. We advised that as it stood, we would likely need
to consider refusing this part of your request under substantial collation and research grounds.
On 25 November 2024, you responded to NZTA and clarified that you were interested in why the
“promised functionality isn’t being rol ed out in Auckland as part of the contact less payments rollout.”
Based on your clarification, we have provided a detailed explanation in response to part three of your
request, regarding concessions. In relation to your request for documents and emails between NZTA
and Cubic; due to the substantial amount of work that would be required to research and col ate the
information you have requested, I am refusing this part of your request under section 18(f) of the Act,
as the information requested cannot be made available without substantial collation or research.
We have considered whether charging or extending the timeframe for responding to your request
would help, as required by section 18A of the Act. However, due to the number of years which the
project has been in operation and the volume of communications between NZTA and Cubic in relation
to the proposed and agreed functionality of the NTS, it is estimated that several thousand documents
and emails would fall within the scope of this part of your request, necessitating a substantial collation
and research exercise which would impact the operations of the NTS programme.
2
Under section 28 of the Act, you have the right to ask the Ombudsman to review my decision to refuse
part of this request. The contact details for the Ombudsman can be located at
www.ombudsman.parliament.nz.
In line with NZTA policy, this response wil soon be published on our website, with personal
information removed.
If you would like to discuss this reply with NZTA, please contact the Ministerial Services team by email
to [email address].
Yours sincerely
Sarina Pratley
Chief Customer & Services Officer
3
