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Planning programming and funding manual cover.

Planning, programming and funding manual

Published: 25 08 2008

The Planning, programming and funding manual sets out the NZTA's policies, procedures and guidance for the planning and management of land transport activities that can be funded from the national land transport fund.

This manual will guide the 2009/10–2011/12 regional land transport programmes (RLTPs) and the National Land Transport Programme (NLTP) – the first three-year transport programmes. It sets out policy and procedures for developing and managing the RLTPs and NLTP during those cycles.

The manual was also used to manage the 2008/09 NLTP.

The procedures described in this manual have been developed to assist approved organisations to prepare and plan projects and activities for which they seek funding from the NZTA, within the framework of the NZTA’s overall funding allocation process.

The Planning, programming and funding manual is also available in PDF, either as the whole document or in parts. The PDF version is the master document.

Note: The online version and PDF section for the Planning, programming and funding manual now incorporate the changes from Amendment 1 and is effective from 1 July 2009.

Chapter G3 Assessment of packages

Introduction

This chapter sets out the NZTA's method of assessment for packages.

Purpose and audience

The purpose of this chapter is to provide guidance to anyone assessing a package. It may also be useful to NZTA staff advising people who are assessing packages.

Use of standard criteria and considerations

Packages are assessed using standard assessment criteria and considerations in Chapter G2 Standard criteria and considerations for assessment of improvement projects.

The resulting assessment profile applies to all activities in the package.

Update required

An update or new assessment of the package is required when either:

  • any of the following have changed significantly:
    • the problem, issue or opportunity
    • the package maroscope
    • the costs
    • the impacts, or
  • the package assessment is outdated (>3 years old).

Optimisation needed

Optimisation of packages is an important part of the assessment.

The contribution of an individual activity to the effectiveness and economic efficiency of the package must be assessed if the activity:

  • is a large project - refer to section C9.4
  • is likely to have a benefit cost ratio (BCR) around or below 2.0
  • has a weak link to the rest of the package, eg when an activity is added to a package because it is in the same area and it is sensible to implement it at the same time but the activity is not related or complementary to the other activities in the package.

Use of incremental BCR analysis

In the above cases, incremental BCR analysis must be used to determine whether component activities make a sufficient contribution to justify their inclusion in the package and whether the timing of the components is optimised.

The NZTA may require incremental BCR analysis for components of other packages.

Incremental BCR not used

Where a package consists only of integrated interdependent activities, then incremental BCR analysis should not be used to test components of the package.

This is because incremental analysis would not reflect the synergy effects.