Accessibility statement

We want as many people as possible to be able to use this website. For example, that means you should be able to:

• change colours, contrast levels and fonts
• zoom in up to 300% without the text spilling off the screen
• use most of the website with a keyboard or speech recognition software
• access most of the website using a screen reader.

We’ve also made the website text as easy as possible to understand.

Our commitment to accessible websites

We signed the NZ Government’s Accessibility Charter in November 2018. Over the next 5 years, we’re committed to making our information for the public accessible to everyone in a way that meets their individual needs and promotes their independence and dignity.

This means we need to:

• work towards our websites meeting the New Zealand Government Web standards
• make sure our forms, correspondence, pamphlets, brochures, videos, and any other means of interacting with the public are available in a range of accessible formats
• make sure that vendors who are developing or designing for us also comply with accessibility standards and requirements
• respond positively when customers draw our attention to instances of inaccessibility in our information and processes and work to resolve it.

We have audited the accessibility of this site to discover how we’re doing and where we can improve. We know some parts of this website are not fully accessible. For example:

• many of our PDF documents may not be fully accessible to screen reader software
• some of our online forms are difficult to use with just a keyboard
• content we don’t own where we have limited ability to address accessibility.

What we’re doing to improve accessibility

We know that making a website accessible is an ongoing project and are working to resolve all identified accessibility issues which are within our control.

We will regularly monitor the accessibility of the website and encourage our content editors and web developers to keep up to date with the latest accessibility best practice.

Improving accessibility over time

On a large site like this, some accessibility issues can only be fixed one page at a time. While we’re trying to make sure that any new content published is accessible, we’re trying to fix existing content as we find it.

This includes:

• adding captions and transcripts to videos
• improving our links and headings
• making our documents more accessible
• adding text alternatives to images
• making our forms easier to use
• making sure Māori language can be pronounced properly by screen readers.

What we’ve already been doing

After our initial audit we identified some site improvements. We’re working our way through these and trying to make sure that new content we produce is accessible. As part of this work, we've already fixed these technical issues:

• Autocomplete isn’t available for people putting their own information into a form.
• Decorative images need to be hidden from screen readers.
• Meaningful images need to be described to screen readers.
• Some words/icons/buttons are hard to see against their background.
• People must be able to start, pause or hide any moving content on a page.
• You can’t see where you are on the page if you only use a keyboard.
• Links are hard to spot among the rest of the page content.
• Links/buttons have no name to describe their action.
• HTML does not fully conform to specification.
• Language of this site should be correctly identified as NZ English.
• Error messages need to help people easily correct mistakes in forms.
• People using screen readers can’t easily follow page structure.
• Buttons and links don’t always behave the way they should.
• Lists must be identified correctly.

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency is committed to making its websites accessible, in accordance with the NZ Government Web Standards, specifically the Web Accessibility Standard 1.1 and the Web Usability Standard 1.3.

Web Accessibility Standard 1.1(external link)

Web Usability Standard 1.3(external link)

This website aims to be compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines WCAG version 2.1 AA standard.

How we tested this website

This website was most recently tested in May 2021 by our in-house expert using a mix of automated and manual testing methods.

Due to time constraints, we were unable to test every page on the site. We prioritised testing the most commonly used pages.

What to do if you can't access parts of this website

Email us if you have any accessibility feedback for us, need support accessing content on our website, or want to request content in an alternate accessible format.

Email: accessibility@nzta.govt.nz

Contacting us by phone

We recommend a text relay service for people who want to call us and are D/deaf, Deafblind, hearing impaired or have a speech impediment.

NZ Relay service(external link)