The information presented here is based on travel reported in the New Zealand Household Travel Survey from a two day travel diary and associated questions. It is weighted at household, person and trip level to represent the population of New Zealand and their travel on an average annual basis.

General and background information on the HTS, including definitions can be found here.

More indepth data and tables to download can be found here.

Total national travel by mode

The total annual travel in NZ for each mode.

Hover over the lines for more detail. The plots can also be enlarged or made smaller and moved using the buttons at the bottom right.

Trip departure time

The share of the trips in the the last 5 years by the time of day of departure.

The share is over the total for the type of day. For example, a share of 3% by females at 11am on weekdays means 3% of all trips done on weekdays are done by females from 11:00am to 11:59am.

Hover over the lines for more detail. The plots can also be enlarged or made smaller and moved using the buttons at the bottom right.

Average weekly travel per person

Total annual travel per person, converted to the equivalent over a 7 day week.

Trip length

For every trip travelled, how far people go and how long they take.

Average length and duration of trips by mode.

Distribution of the share of trips by distance and duration.

People tend to remember their travel to the nearest 5 minutes and round accordingly. The graph has been scaled (5 min bins), to smooth this characteristic.

Trip chains

Summaries of trip chains travelled by the number of trips in each chain and the average distance and duration the whole chain.

Hover over the lines for more detail. The plots can also be enlarged or made smaller and moved using the buttons at the bottom right.

Travel purpose

Share of all trips by the purpose of the trip.

Hover over the lines for more detail. The plots can also be enlarged or made smaller and moved using the buttons at the bottom right.

Public transport use

The proportion of people who have used public transport in the last 4 weeks or year, if at all.

Hover over the lines for more detail. The plots can also be enlarged or made smaller and moved using the buttons at the bottom right.

Cycling

The proportion of people who have cycled in the last 4 weeks or year, if at all.

Hover over the lines for more detail. The plots can also be enlarged or made smaller and moved using the buttons at the bottom right.

E-scooter use

Collection of data on e-scooter use started in 2021/22.

The proportion of people who have ridden an e-scooter in the last 4 weeks or year, if at all.

Hover over the lines for more detail. The plots can also be enlarged or made smaller and moved using the buttons at the bottom right.

Not travelling

Share of people who didn’t travel on either of their allotted travel days, and the reasons for not travelling.

Hover over the lines for more detail. The plots can also be enlarged or made smaller and moved using the buttons at the bottom right.

Accessibility

For this question, people are asked if they can easily access the facilities* (shops, schools, post shops, libraries and medical services) they want to access.

This report was generated on 2026-05-07

Disclaimer

All reasonable endeavours are made to ensure the accuracy of the information in this report. However, the information is provided without warranties of any kind including accuracy, completeness, timeliness or fitness for any particular purpose.

The Ministry of Transport excludes liability for any loss, damage or expense, direct or indirect, and however caused, whether through negligence or otherwise, resulting from any person or organisation’s use of, or reliance on, the information provided in this report.

Under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (BY) licence, this document, and the information contained within it, can be copied, distributed, adapted and otherwise used provided:

  • the Ministry of Transport is attributed as the source of the material,

  • the material is not misrepresented or distorted through selective use of the material, and

  • images contained in the material are not copied.

The terms of the Ministry’s copyright and disclaimer apply.