The bill also sought to restrict heavy vehicles from driving alternative routes that could avoid tolled sections. Photo: Supplied via LDR
The road freight industry says a proposal to add tolls to existing roads is "double-dipping" motorists for work already paid for through taxes and road-user charges.
Submissions closed this week on the government's Land Transport (Revenue) Amendment Bill, which would allow tolls to be charged on existing roads, where there may be a benefit from newer projects in the same corridor.
Transporting New Zealand chief executive Dom Kalasih said the public was unlikely to support the move during the cost-of-living crisis.
"A tolled road should be tolled because it provides a benefit," Kalasih said. "If you are tolling the whole network, then everyone's paying, rather than just those that are benefiting from the new road."
The bill also sought to restrict heavy vehicles from driving alternative routes that could avoid tolled sections.
"Operators and drivers are in the best position to decide what route to take," Kalasih said. "There are legitimate reasons why an alternative route may be the better fit for a particular job, including fuel use, gradient, rest and refreshment facilities, and route efficiency."
He said Transmission Gully - north of Wellington - was a route that drivers chose to use, despite the steepness of the route incurring greater fuel costs.
"They are still using it, because it has other benefits over [alternative route] State Highway 59. It's easier, it's safer, it's marginally faster.
"The government shouldn't have to say 'all trucks must use only this route'. If that is the best solution the market should determine that."
He said exceptions to the rule - for deliveries or access to premises along the restricted routes - would also be difficult to enforce and would likely adversely impact "bona fide" users.
"Chances are how it would work is the police would give an infringement notice, and then that truck or their operator would have to defend it, if they had been there for bona fide reasons. We think that's an unnecessary compliance cost and it could be avoided."
However Kalasih said the group was in favour of the bill's road-user charges modernisation elements, which included changes enabling greater use of technology, more flexible payment options and the removal of the requirement to display a RUC label.
"These RUC changes will reduce unnecessary administration and compliance costs for transport operators and motorists, and support the transition toward a universal RUC system over time," he said.
"Moving from petrol excise duty being collected at the pump to universal RUC is a good idea, because the way income from petrol excise duty is being collected and the way the fleet is changing means that side of revenue is falling. Demand for petrol use is reducing.
"There's actually not a great correlation between petrol use and the road cost, whereas the road user charges system - in that cost allocation model - that's got a much stronger correlation.
"It's better to capture it through the road-user charges system than through petrol tax."
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