A new approach to setting speed limits on New Zealand roads has been finalised by the Government and came into force on 30 October 2024.
The new rule sets out how speed limits on New Zealand roads will be managed in a way that supports economic growth, boosts productivity, and enables people to get to where they are going efficiently and safely.
As the state highway Road Controlling Authority (RCA), NZTA is responsible for implementing the rule’s requirements on our state highway network. Other RCAs including councils are responsible for local roads.
Under the new rule some state highway locations within certain categories of roads will be required to reverse in a once-off ‘transition’ exercise as part of the introduction of the rule. These roads are known as ‘specified roads’ within the rule and that have been subject to speed reviews and had their speed lowered since 1 January 2020. These speed reversals are required to be implemented by 1 July 2025.
However, for two of these categories (state highway interregional connectors and rural connectors), the rule allows NZTA to consult to see if local road users, councils, local communities and iwi support some of these locations staying at today’s speed limits, rather than seeing them auto-reversed.
This consultation is now closed and took place from 30 January – 13 March 2025 and sought feedback on local support levels across a range of state highway locations in several regions around the country.
These locations were included in the consultation because local feedback has either been supportive or mixed in the past, and we need to understand today’s sentiment to inform our final list of specified roads to reverse.
In total, approximately 38 state highway locations managed by NZTA are required to automatically reverse, and an additional 49 locations were consulted on.
NZTA would like to thank people for providing feedback during this consultation process. We are currently assessing all feedback to understand support levels for reversing speed limits to their previous higher speed limit or retaining the current lower speed limits. We will share the outcome of this consultation in May 2025 and respond to all submitters with the consultation outcome.
There are also other state highway locations in the ‘specified roads’ categories all around New Zealand that will be automatically reversing to their previous higher speed.
View full list of specified roads
More about the Setting of Speed Limits Rule 2024
With the exception of any personal information that could be used to identify an individual person (such as names, contact details and physical addresses), the information you have provided in this feedback form will be made publicly available and will be used by NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (we/us) to gain feedback and to meet the consultation requirements for speed limit change reversals on interregional connector and urban connector roads as set out in the Land Transport Rule: Setting of Speed Limits 2024. Any personal information you provide might legally need to be disclosed to third parties if subject to a request under the Official Information Act 1982 (or as otherwise required by law). If your feedback is commercially sensitive or you do not want it disclosed, please let us know. Under the Privacy Act 2020 you have the right to know what personal information we hold about you. You can read more about how we handle your information on our website or contact us at info@nzta.govt.nz.
