Media statement | 11 April 2007

Comment sought on draft Operator Safety Rating Rule

Land Transport NZ has released the draft Operator Safety Rating Rule for public comment, marking a significant step towards the establishment of publicly available safety ratings for licensed transport providers in New Zealand.  

The draft rule provides the legal framework to establish an Operator Rating System (ORS), which will rate commercial transport companies based on their compliance with standards and regulations.

The proposed system will allow Land Transport NZ to pull together information including Certificate of Fitness (CoF) inspection results, crash reports and offence data, and use it to produce ratings for commercial operators. The ratings would be published and regularly reviewed.

Land Transport NZ National Manager Commercial Road Transport John Doesburg said the system would improve road safety by helping Police and Land Transport NZ better target compliance activity in the commercial road transport sector.

“The ORS ratings will provide evidence on which operators are performing well and which aren’t. That will allow us to provide advice and assistance to those who need it most, and it will also let us know where to focus our enforcement activity.  Targeting the right parts of the industry will deliver a better return on the significant investments being made to improve safety.”  

Mr Doesburg said in addition to raising the standards of poor operators, the system would benefit good operators who comply with the law but face unfair economic pressure from those who don’t.

“Operators who play by the rules deserve to know they are competing on a level playing field.  We’re committed to achieving that by working with the transport industry and applying regulations fairly to protect all road users.”

The Operator Safety Rating Rule allows for all Transport Service Licence holders and Approved Taxi Organisations to be rated, but the system would be implemented in stages, beginning with the bus and heavy transport industries. While the Rule is expected to be signed later this year, the development of the system will take time, with the ORS likely to be in place in 2009.

More information about the Rule and the implementation process can be found at http://www.landtransport.govt.nz/consultation/operator-safety-rating/index.html.  

For more information
Andy Knackstedt
Media Manager - Land Transport New Zealand
Ph: 04 931 8829  or  0212 763 222