About DOC’s roads

DOC is responsible for over 1,800 km of roading. This includes approximately 1,100 km of public roads and another 700 km of restricted access roads.

Our roads are generally short, dispersed and unsealed. Most of our roads are not connected to one another. Instead, they are extensions from state highways and local roads. They enable public access to public conservation land, and allow our rangers and our contractors to carry out their work.

Like other road controlling authorities, the public roads we manage are eligible for Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency funding support. This is an agreement where for every dollar we spend on approved roading activities, we can claim 51% back from Waka Kotahi.

We anticipate spending up to $15.90 million from 2021/22 to 2023/24 on the maintenance and upkeep of our roads, of which up to $15.60 million is expected to attract funding support from Waka Kotahi.

Procurement strategy

Download the strategy

Procurement Strategy for Roading Activities, 2021/22 – 2023/24 (PDF, 1,337K)

About the strategy

The physical maintenance of a disconnected series of roads is inherently more expensive than a connected network because of the downtime involved in moving resources from one road to the next.

The Procurement Strategy for Roading Activities, 2021/22 - 2023/24 seeks to maximise the value for money through the engagement of adjacent road controlling authorities or their contractors to maintain our roads.

This strategy is operative until 31 December 2024.

It has the following key elements:

1. We will continue to work with road controlling authorities towards the delivery of physical works activities through service level agreements (Section 3.1).
2. Where the road controlling authority’s preference is not to enter into a service level agreement, we will seek to engage the road controlling authority’s roading contractor to deliver physical roading activities (Section 3.1).
3. We will seek Waka Kotahi and road controlling authority support for a combined approach to the procurement of our respective maintenance activities (Section 3.1).
4. Professional services will be delivered through internal resourcing (‘in-house professional services) and external consultant resources (Section 3.2). In-house resources will be used to deliver winter maintenance at Aoraki/Mt Cook (Section 3.1).
5. Our engagement of external consultants will comply with the DOC’s Procurement and Supplier Management Standard Operating Procedure and the Waka Kotahi procurement manual (Section 3.2).