Rail Network Investment Programme (RNIP)

Rail plays an important role in New Zealand, avoiding transport emissions and road congestion by transporting millions of people each year on Auckland and Wellington commuter services.

Given rail has 70 per cent fewer carbon emissions per tonne carried, compared to road freight, growing rail freight volumes is a crucial way of reducing emissions from the transport sector as a whole.

Investment in the national rail network is crucial to delivering service reliability, for commuters in Auckland and Wellington and KiwiRail’s freight customers across the country.

The Rail Network Investment Programme (RNIP) details investment in New Zealand’s rail network over a three-year period. In includes funding from the National Land Transport Fund and Government Budgets.

For KiwiRail, each RNIP (within a 10 year forecast) enables more effective investment decision making, supports and creates new jobs, and provides certainty to ourselves and to customers. It is the basis on which better and more reliable services to customers can be provided, ultimately resulting in greater volumes on rail.

The current RNIP (2024 – 27) is available here. The investment focus for rail is:

• investing in the busiest and most productive parts of the existing rail network to support the efficient movement of freight
• investing in the metropolitan rail networks to support the efficient movement of people in Auckland and Wellington.

Aligning to this, the majority of spend is on the continuous programmes of maintenance, management and renewal.