Transport Minister Chris Bishop has urged officials to get “back on track” as fresh delays hit the roll-out of NZTA’s new national public transport ticketing system.
The Motu Move system was supposed to launch in Timaru and Temuka by mid-2025, but has since been delayed due to “challenges with delivery”.
Transport officials didn’t provide an updated date for when the new card would actually launch, when queried this week.
It’s the third missed launch target the project has faced in the past nine months.
The setback comes as an independent review has been launched into the National Ticketing Solution (NTS) by the programme’s governance group.
Bishop told 1News he met with the group to “stress” the significant sums being spent and to encourage them “to exercise leadership to get the project back on track”.
A spokesperson for NZTA said: “Work is underway to understand the options with a revised delivery plan for Canterbury expected to be confirmed in the next few months.
“The National Ticketing Solution team is also working on a revised regional roll-out plan and timeline for the rest of the country. This is expected to be confirmed in August.”
The NTS project will replace all transit cards used on buses, trains and ferries around the country with a single national card, which will be branded under “Motu Move”.
It will include the phasing out of several existing payment methods, including Snapper in Wellington, Metrocard in Christchurch and Bee cards.
The project has cost $146 million since 2018, according to figures up until December and released to the Taxpayers Union. NTS has been budgeted to cost $1.3 billion over 15 years.
An initial December 2024 launch date in Timaru and Temuka – a smaller region with relatively limited public transport services – was pushed to early this year and then mid-2025. A January launch date for Greater Christchurch was also delayed to September.
It follows a tortured multi-year process to develop the national smartcard system, which includes the ability to pay with contactless debit cards and smartphones.
Kiwis will have the option of paying for public transport with their debit or credit card, or digital payment method. (Source: 1News)
Bishop said he was “concerned” about the programme and “delays to rolling it out”.
“I have recently met with the National Ticketing Solution governance group to stress the significant investment the Government is making in the project, and to encourage them to exercise leadership to get the project back on track,” he said in a statement.
“The group has commissioned an independent review into the project to identify opportunities for improvement in the programme, and I expect to receive a copy of its findings in July, along with a plan to deliver the project.”
‘Alternative delivery approach’ being considered
In December, a “pilot” of the system was deployed on one bus line in Christchurch, which allowed people to use contactless cards to tap on if they were paying adult fares. The pilot hasn’t included the wide distribution or use of Motu Move cards.
An NZTA spokesperson said findings from the pilot would be used to potentially roll out “features” of the new system sooner in “phases”.
“The NTS programme team has been exploring alternative delivery approaches for Canterbury to implement Motu Move features in phases, building on the success of the contactless payments pilot on the route 29 bus.”
They said the independent review of the programme was “expected to be completed with a final report presented to the NTS governance board at the end of July”.
The most recent delay follows a long development process for the smartcard system, which has been put together by NZTA in various forms since 2009. Subsequent developments have seen a litany of delays and posited launch dates scrapped.
In March, Bishop was briefed that US system supplier Cubic was bringing in “additional capacity” to “accelerate progress” on the project after the first set of recent delays.
Release one testing of the system was expected to be finished in early May, the Transport Minister was told at the time.
Meanwhile, a review carried out on the NTS project in October found “significant issues already exist requiring management attention”, according to a brief summary provided by NZTA. The agency refused to release a full copy of the report to 1News.
The review came shortly before the roll-out was first delayed from its December target.
It also concluded the programme was “well governed, led and resourced” and that the significant issues were “viewed as resolvable at the time of the review”.
