Have a well deserved break! 

The festive season is suddenly upon us and for most in our industry it will be a well-deserved and welcome opportunity to get some relief from what’s been a tough year.

For me Christmas is a time to celebrate, spend time with families and friends, and recharge the batteries. Although good luck finding an electric charging station for trucks!

Despite the challenges that affect the transport of road freight in a hard economy, our members have continued to keep NZ moving.

I cannot recall a single significant case where freight hasn’t got to where it needed to be. There hasn’t been a single failure in the supply chain of any substantive or critical nature despite events like:

- unplanned disruptions to the road network,

- a Y2K-esque type disruption to the fuel supply on February 29,

- floods on the West Coast and in Gisborne,

- the disruption to the Cook Strait ferry services,

- the loss of access to large sections of SH1 between Piarere and Waiouru to enable rehabilitation and other works, and many other challenges I could mention.

I’m not sure what it takes to ensure the industry gets the credit it deserves, but we keep working at it! But I do know it takes special people, special teams  and special businesses to get the job done no matter what’s thrown at them. All our members are those people. I hope you all get a chance to reflect on this, because it is an achievement and something to be proud of and to celebrate.

Roads for Success

I have no doubt the government understands the importance of a good road network. Trucks are only about 10 percent of the vehicles in most traffic streams so we are the minority users, but everyone wins with good, solid infrastructure.

As with the announcement of every other National Land Transport Programme, the 2024-27 one had a record level of planned investment, this time being $32.9b.

The respective NLTP levels of investment levels over the last decade or so are:

- $13.9b for 2015-18;

- $16.9b for 2018-21;

- $24.3b for 2021 to 2024;

- and now $32.9b.

That trend is both positive but also frightening, because the gap between what is collected from road users via petrol excise, RUC and motor vehicle registrations fees, and what is required, is huge.

Generating more revenue to fund this future investment is a difficult but necessary conversation to have. It needs to be meaningful and effective, and it needs to happen quickly.

Whether the way to bridge that funding gap is with PPPs, congestion charging, tolling or increasing the cost for all road users with a universal-type road user charge, we believe New Zealanders can be brought along on that journey. But it will take implementing good, compelling cases.

Tolling decisions

We were pleased to see that the announcements last Friday on the tolling of the Ōtaki to north of Levin highway, Takitimu North Link and the Manawatu-Tararua highway were completely aligned with what we’ve advocated.

With future cases, it will be important that NZTA and the Ministry of Transport need to be well aligned, which wasn’t the case when consultation was done recently. Last week we offered our assistance to the Minister in this regard.

Given the increased levels of NLTP investment, it will also be important that the spend for the current plan provides not only value for money but also delivers the desired outcomes.

Getting stuff done and improving what people can feel or touch, or in our case, drive on it, is what matters. Having all lanes on the Waikato Expressway operating, and driving on nice new roads like Transmission Gully and Peka Peka to Otaki with speed limits of 110km/h are so much better for everyone. They are a massive plus for getting people and freight to where they need to be faster and safer.

Finally, thanks to all our partners, especially NZTA and its contractors and road workers, that have delivered the new roads and prepared and maintained the current network. We are very appreciative much of this work has had to be done under pressure,  and under challenging circumstances.

There’s increasing light at the end of our tunnel so for me its onwards and upwards and I look forward to continuing to support our members and our industry next year.

And remember: Every single Christmas present that every single person in NZ receives has only got there because of a heap of truck movements. It’s pretty cool to be part of a supply chain that brings that much happiness!

Have a well-deserved break and a great festive season.

Regards, Dom, CEO Transporting NZ