Colour Coding🔗
Every user on the TAK.NZ map is shown as a colour-coded dot based on their organisation. This lets you identify who you're looking at during a multi-agency response at a glance, without needing to check every callsign individually.
Colour mapping🔗
| Colour | Organisation |
|---|---|
| Red | Fire and Emergency New Zealand (FENZ) |
| Blue | New Zealand Police |
| Green | Hato Hone St John / Wellington Free Ambulance / Air Ambulance & Rescue Helicopter |
| Cyan | Health New Zealand (Te Whatu Ora) |
| Orange | Land Search and Rescue NZ (LandSAR) |
| Purple | National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) |
| Brown | New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) |
| Teal | Coastguard New Zealand |
| Yellow | Road Network Operations (NZTA; contracted maintenance and alliance partners) |
| Dark Blue | New Zealand Customs Service |
| Dark Green | Department of Conservation (DOC) |
| Magenta | Maritime New Zealand |
| Maroon | New Zealand Red Cross |
| White | Vendor / Technical Support |
Why these colours were chosen🔗
Colours follow internationally recognised conventions wherever possible:
- Red for fire and Blue for police are universal, widely recognised standards.
- Green for medical and ambulance aligns with New Zealand's ambulance livery and the broader clinical response community, including air ambulance assets.
- Orange for search and rescue reflects the international safety-orange convention used in SAR equipment and operations.
- Dark Blue for Customs reflects both the blue livery of NZ Customs vessels and the enforcement nature of their role, positioning them adjacent to Police in the law enforcement spectrum.
- Teal for Coastguard distinguishes this volunteer rescue organisation from enforcement agencies — teal is a maritime colour reflecting sea-rescue identity without implying enforcement authority.
- Dark Green for DOC directly reflects the green uniforms, vehicles, and signage used by DOC rangers in the field.
- Brown for NZDF reflects the brown and tan tones of NZDF field uniforms (DPCU camouflage). Blue is reserved for NZ Police — TAK.NZ is a civilian emergency management Common Operating Picture, not a military battlespace management system, so the "blue force" convention used in defence contexts doesn't apply here.
- Yellow for road network operations reflects the high-visibility safety yellow universally associated with roading, construction, and traffic management, covering NZTA/Waka Kotahi and contracted partners like Downer and Milford Road Alliance.
- Magenta for Maritime NZ distinguishes the regulatory and coordination authority from operational maritime responders like Coastguard and Customs.
- White is reserved for vendors and technical support as a neutral, non-operational colour.
Air Ambulance and Rescue Helicopter assets share Green with ground ambulance, since they operate within the same clinical and coordination umbrella.
Organisations without a dedicated colour🔗
Not every government organisation gets its own colour slot. The principle applied is that TAK.NZ represents operational field presence — organisations that coordinate, support, or have jurisdiction but don't deploy personnel to incident scenes are better handled through a liaison role within an existing colour group, rather than occupying a dedicated slot:
- NZIC (New Zealand Intelligence Community) doesn't deploy to incident scenes. An embedded intelligence liaison operates under NZDF (Brown) using a
NZDF-INT-callsign prefix. - Corrections NZ isn't a primary emergency responder. Where Corrections staff have a rare field role (e.g. perimeter security or prisoner transport during an evacuation), they operate under NZ Police (Blue) using a
CORR-callsign prefix, reflecting the command relationship in those scenarios.
Related🔗
- Callsigns — the standardised naming schema that identifies each track alongside its colour
- Channel Structure — how these organisations are grouped for coordination