NZTA (New Zealand Transport Agency – Waka Kotahi) recently implemented a series of price increases for a wide range of their products and services, effective 1 October 2023. The increases include the API service (Application Programming Interface) used by Blackhawk to deliver vehicle compliance data. Details on the NZTA fee changes are here.
Blackhawk uses two NZTA APIs to deliver vehicles data such as WoF/CoF and registration expiry dates and current RUC licence information. NZTA has increased the price for the first API by 800% and the second by 1700% from 1 October 2023.
To mitigate the effects of these price increases, Blackhawk has designed new options to deliver a robust vehicle NZTA compliance solution whilst minimising cost increases. The new options include:
- If a vehicle is not within three weeks of a WOF/COF or registration expiry date, our platform will default to a monthly NZTA sync for that vehicle.
- If the vehicle comes within three weeks of a WOF/COF or registration expiry date, our platform will change to a daily overnight sync for that vehicle until a renewal occurs, after which the vehicle subscription will revert back to a monthly overnight sync.
- For a vehicle that is subject to RUC, if it is not within 500km or an estimated three weeks from the current RUC licence expiring, our platform will check once a month.
- The estimated three weeks is calculated using the distance travelled per day from the last 90 days to generate an approximate RUC licence renewal date.
- Once the vehicle is within 500km or estimated three weeks from RUC licence expiry (whichever comes first), our platform will change to a daily overnight sync until a new RUC licence is purchased.
- If a vehicle becomes more than three weeks past its WOF/COF or registration due date, or 500km past its RUC licence expiry, our platform will revert to a weekly overnight sync for that vehicle. This is to cater to legitimate instances where a vehicle does not need to be kept compliant.