A $1.4 billion ticketing solution has been delayed by a year, with a review finding the NZ Transport Agency's original timings for the nationwide plan were "overly ambitious".
The national ticketing solution (NTS) would - for the first time - allow people to easily tag on to buses, trains and ferries using contactless payments.
It was meant to be on public transport throughout the country by the end of next year, but following an independent review it has been announced that deadline would be pushed back to the end of 2027.
NZTA/Waka Kotahi chief customer and services officer Sarina Pratley said that the project's review was launched in May and had resulted in 10 main recommendations.
They included changes to the programme governance, leadership, delivery and decision-making, as well as ensuring realistic resourcing commitments from all NTS partners.
"A new programme director has been appointed, the programme's governance structure is being reviewed to strengthen decision-making, a restructure of the programme is under way to ensure it has the right resources to be successfully delivered, and additional resource has been committed to the NTS programme."
The review found that the original timeframes for the project were overly ambitious, 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. NZTA has used the review's insights to get agreement for a more manageable incremental release plan for the technical solution."
In July, Transport Minister Chris Bishop told RNZ that NZTA had been "overly optimistic" about its timeframes when a briefing from earlier that year said the NTS project was on target to be completed on time and within budget.
As part of the latest announcement NZTA said that the NTS would be rolled out to Christchurch in November this year.
Pratley said NTS equipment would start to be installed on buses and ferries in the South Island city this week.
"This is exciting news for Christchurch and for the broader NTS programme. By mid-November, bus and ferry passengers in Christchurch will be able to make fare payments using credit or debit cards."
The revised national rollout plan for the NTS would be finalised later this month.
