Roads of National Significance need data of national significance

Aotearoa New Zealand is entering one of its most significant periods of transport investment. The Roads of National Significance programme now includes seventeen large projects with an estimated total cost at around NZD 50 billion. More than twenty‑five major road, rail and rapid transit schemes also sit within the National Infrastructure Pipeline. Their combined value exceeds NZD100 billion dollars.

Te Waihanga, the New Zealand Infrastructure Commission, has highlighted that a large share of future spending will need to support maintenance and renewal work. Up to sixty cents in every dollar may be required to sustain existing assets rather than create new ones.

At the same time, Waka Kotahi New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) is making a major operational shift. The Integrated Delivery Model has just replaced the Network Outcomes Contracts. Through the IDM, NZTA takes direct responsibility for asset management which includes the way condition information is collected and interpreted and how renewal and maintenance programmes are developed. Contracts have been awarded and transition work has begun.

This evolution, combined with the scale of upcoming investment, creates a distinct moment for the sector. The question is how well knowledge foundations will support the decisions that follow.

Every transport project generates large volumes of information. This includes details about what was built, how assets have performed and which renewal or maintenance treatments were applied. Information also reflects the practical experience of the people who work on the network.

Much of this is lost when contracts change hands. Records fall out of view or sit in formats that do not move with the next team. Local knowledge about a structure, corridor, or condition trend often leaves with the people who understand it.

The effects are not obvious at first. They become visible when renewal planning repeats an approach that previously under‑performed or when a maintenance team inherits assets without a clear sense of their history. An assessment by Te Waihanga places Aotearoa near the bottom of the OECD for asset management practice. Renewal spending on state highways between 2012 and 2022 averaged 37 percent of reported depreciation. In that context, repeating the same issues across cycles adds pressure to a system already under strain.

The sector is not starting from scratch. The Asset Management Data Standard (AMDS) and the AMDS Network Model have created an important shared structure for land transport information. These tools support consistent ways of describing and organising data.

Structure alone does not create shared meaning. Two people may record the same asset condition in different ways. A term used by one supplier may represent a different issue for another. When this happens, information cannot be compared across the network or between contracts. It also limits the value that analytical tools, including AI, can offer because the underlying terms do not align.

A semantic layer provides the definitions that sit alongside the AMDS structure. It creates a governed set of meanings that remain stable across time, suppliers and systems. It is the difference between data that can be stored and data that can support better decisions, rather than an academic exercise.

Knowledge foundations can be viewed in three connected layers. Each layer depends on the strength of the one beneath it.

1. Capture

Collecting information in full and at the right time, which includes condition observations, defect information, works history, as‑built details and performance results. Most contracts place attention here although completeness is often uneven.

2. Standardise and connect

Using consistent structures and identifiers so that information from different teams can be compared. The semantic layer sits here because it creates common meaning. AMDS provides the structure. The governed definitions create alignment.

3. Learn

Using consistent information to understand performance, reflect on lessons, and build organisational memory. This is where analytics provide value. AI and advanced tools only help when the information they draw on has consistent meaning. 

We are working with National Highways in the United Kingdom on a long‑term programme centred on information foundations. A large part of this work develops agreed definitions and classification approaches that apply across contractors, systems and internal teams. The direction reflects a wider shift. Mature infrastructure organisations are investing in ways to compare and combine information from multiple environments.

Timing matters for Aotearoa. Establishing common meaning before systems and contractual arrangements are fully embedded reduces the cost of future alignment.

IDM contracts are already being signed and transition work is underway. The decisions made in the coming months will set the baseline for the next decade. This timing creates a window that will not remain open for long.

Several actions would strengthen the information foundation for the IDM era:

• Setting data quality expectations inside contracts with agreed datasets and ways to assess them. New South Wales has taken this approach through policy requirements.
• Developing a governed ontology and taxonomy alongside existing standards. This does not need to delay mobilisation.
• Designing for continuity at contract transitions with clear data handover expectations.
• Establishing a maturity assessment from the first contract year with targets and a cycle of improvement.

Roads of National Significance reflect the scale of risk and opportunity within Aotearoa New Zealand’s transport system. The same principle applies to the information that describes them. When data is incomplete, inconsistent or lost over time, decision‑making weakens and investment outcomes become harder to sustain.

As investment and delivery models evolve, the durability of infrastructure knowledge becomes a critical factor in long‑term asset performance. Establishing shared meaning, continuity and accountability in data practices is not an abstract exercise. It underpins the ability to manage assets confidently across decades, contracts and changing operational models.

Organisations across Aotearoa New Zealand, Australia and the United Kingdom are already treating data as core infrastructure in their own right. The choices made now will shape how effectively national transport assets can be understood, maintained and renewed over the long term.