Today’s announcement that tolling will be used to accelerate investment in new roads including Ōtaki to north of Levin, Takitimu North Link and Penlink, is a positive move, believes National Road Carriers (NRC).

“It is an unfortunate reality that our roading network is well below the standard expected to deliver safe, efficient, and productive movement of freight and that there is a significant shortfall in the revenue required to address this issue,” says Justin Tighe-Umbers, CEO, NRC.

NRC expects that this decision will result in a demonstrable lift in the speed of delivery and the quality of the network.

The freight industry is comfortable with heavy vehicles being required to use toll roads as a means of diverting traffic from unsuitable areas if the toll roads result in efficiency gains and the need to pass on the additional cost is reduced.

“We are playing catch up on both new roads and maintaining our existing ones, at the same time as having declining roading revenue returns from fuel duties. This obviously can't go on so new ways of funding our future roads are needed, and that includes tools such as tolling, time of use and value capture,” says Tighe-Umbers.

“If New Zealanders want first world roads, then collectively, we need to be prepared to pay for them. Consideration does need to be given to how to appropriately charge freight to create better freight efficiencies and as long as the efficiencies exist, we believe transport operators and their customers will be prepared to pay for that.”

New Zealand needs quality infrastructure to support a growing economy and NRC supports initiatives that will accelerate the delivery of high-quality infrastructure.

“We also support the changes to the tolling infrastructure being undertaken by NZTA and will be wanting to see the cost of administering the system reduced,” adds Tighe-Umbers.