‘Getting ridiculous’: Councillor slams ticketing delays

Tuesday, 28 October 2025

A Greater Wellington Regional councillor with a strong interest in transport has fired a shot across NZTA’s bow: Seventeen years and counting is too long to wait for national public transport ticketing.

When a national ticketing solution (NTS) was first discussed around 2008 – a year after the first iPhone – it seemed like the future: the ability to swipe on and off public transport nationwide using a single card.

Thomas Nash, who chaired the regional council’s transport committee last triennium, said in February that NTS would launch in 2026 as a card called Motu Move.

It has now been planned for 2027 as 2026 was “overly ambitious” with NZTA allocating $1.358 billion to it nationally, including $51.3 million in transition funding for Wellington.

Yadana Saw was elected on the same ticket as Nash in 2022 and, with Nash stepping down in 2025, shares many of his priorities, including nationwide ticketing.

Saw is frustrated. Wellington made an early commitment to the NZTA-led national ticketing system, and she says 17 years is far too long for residents to wait. The technology, once world-leading, is now common globally—though New Zealand would be the first country to implement a fully national system, with the Government (via NZTA) covering 90% of setup and ongoing costs.

“It is just getting ridiculous,” she said.

Wellington City’s incoming mayor, Andrew Little, campaigned strongly on fare-capping and that would be impossible to deliver i without a costly upgrade to existing technology or the promised NTS, Saw said.

“There is no question around our commitment to NTS … It’s just a question of how soon NZTA can make it easier for public transport users to get from A to B. Rather than fast tracking tunnels and roads of national significance, let’s improve our existing transport options.”

NZTA chief customer and services officer Sarina Pratley pointed to an independent review in September which “reset” the NTS with a Christchurch rollout in November and through the country in 2027. The review found NZTA was “overly ambitious” in aiming for 2026, she said.

The Wellington region rollout would begin in early-2027, Pratley said.

“NTS is a complex programme to deliver. It is replacing four different ticketing systems that support five national and additional local concessions with one standardised national system.

“The challenge has been accommodating a broad range of localised requirements into one national technical solution.”

While the idea was first discussed in 2011, its development and procurement started in 2020, she said. The Post archives show that, in 2018, Congestion Free Wellington, was saying the idea had been around for 12 years. A 2007 Dominion Post article referenced the idea being considered by transport officials.

Chris Laidlaw was the chairperson of the regional council in 2016, when he said, “we don’t know if there will be a single national card”.

Speaking last week, he said there were issues with a national system but none were insurmountable if they “got on and did it”.

“It feels like we are waiting for Godot.”

He recalls his frustrations with ticketing were mostly internal, but says delays from NZTA and central government — especially around Let’s Get Wellington Moving —w ere deeply exasperating, citing an “inability to get a clear signal from the government”.