Ia Ara Aotearoa Transporting New Zealand

Transporting New Zealand is generally supportive of tolling, where it delivers more substantial roading improvements, more quickly. We need faster, safer roads delivered in years, not decades.

However, an important condition for support is drivers having a choice, by requiring a free alternative to be maintained. Currently, the law states a Minister of Transport must not recommend the tolling of a road unless satisfied that “a feasible, untolled, alternative route is available to road use...

Those strategies will also depend on external factors, in particular demand and supply of freight services.

In order of highest priority, our freight survey last year showed that the four issues of most importance to transport businesses were: business cost and economic pressures; the poor state of the roading network; the health, safety and wellbeing of drivers; and regulatory requirements ...

A recent highlight for me was the launch of our Green Fleet Self-Assessment Tool, developed with the support of TR Group and EECA.

The self-assessment tool is an online initiative aimed at reducing road-freight emissions. It outlines how a range of different strategies can help businesses and their customers meet sustainability goals, and to ensure good uptake, it’s freely available on our website.

Attendees had the chance to see, touch and learn about some of the new truck technologies on display. The team at TR had done such a brilliant job of maintaining and presenting the vehicles that it was hard to believe these units are all oper...

Although New Zealand is small and geographically distant from many of the countries represented, the symposium helped put things into perspective. There were areas of clear overlap in the challenges we face, but also some key differences in how they’re being managed.

Vehicles and Energy

Mo...

A recent example is Transport Minister Chris Bishop’s announcement about the new Ōtaki to north of Levin highway (O2NL). NZTA has signed construction contracts with two alliances to build this Road of National Significance and construction will get underway this spring.

The existing Kāpiti Highway currently sees up to 19,500 vehicle movements per day, and this project is the final leg of the Wellington Northern Corridor. It will mean we have a multi-lane motorway/expressway standard road for those travelling between Wellington and a bit past Lev...