At the start of this week mainstream media coverage of transport was dominated by Transporting New Zealand’s recommendations on how the nation could get through tough times by moving the stuff communities need more productively. In all the interviews I did, it was great that all bar none agreed with our logic.

We’re still in the “Watchful” first phase of the Government’s Fuel Response Plan, but we’ve shown there’s a smarter way of doing thing to help us through this period. To us it seems crazy to wait for things to get worse which, by the way, is a point that the government has not yet been able to define. Let’s work smarter now. 

As mentioned in an earlier blog, we’re well aware of the old adage “don’t let a good crisis go to waste” and know there’s plenty of other ideas being floated out there.  

One of the ideas we’ve been asked to comment on is a paper espousing the fact that ships and trains have better fuel intensity than trucks. In other words, compared to a truck those modes can carry more cargo proportionately for the amount of fuel they burn. There’s some irony in this because our suggestion to officials is based around the same underlying principle: carrying a little more in a truck ultimately improves fuel intensity! However, on the basis that ships and trains were better, the paper infers that with different policy settings, a significant amount of the work done by trucks should instead be transported by rail and coastal shipping. 

In the advice we’ve subsequently provided we’ve made the point that each of the transport modes – air, road, rail and coastal – offer different attributes. Determining any particular mode, or modes, to complete a transport task comes down to many factors.  

Rail and coastal shipping play important roles in our supply chain. However, history shows that previous attempts by government to shift freight between modes have been ineffective, resulted in inefficiencies, and came at significant expense to taxpayers.

As noted in the Government Policy Statement on land transport, a significant investment in rail freight under the previous government still saw rail freight tonne-km steadily decline. The report hypothesized that 7.5 billion tonne-km long distance road freight could be converted to coastal shipping and rail. In other words, rail could increase its annual delivery task by 3.75 billion tonne-km. That’s more than double its 2024/25 activity and that appears extremely ambitious, without other changes.   

We support the Government’s current approach of focussing freight rail investment in the Golden Triangle – the most productive sections of the rail network. This approach can hopefully arrest the poor commercial performance of KiwiRail and the steady decline in the rail freight task compared to road seen in NZTA’s latest data. 

We also made the point that a large part of how our members bring value to their clients is by providing effective transport solutions, and that will include the consideration of all modes. This has most recently been demonstrated by one of our members developing the intermodal Fairfield Freight Hub.  

I can also attest to the fact that while I was Z Energy’s Logistics Manager, we thoroughly investigated the best way to move fuel inter-regionally. I didn’t care what mode was used, I just wanted the best overall transport solution, and so we specifically considered the use of rail. The inherent inefficiencies of rail resulted in it not being viable.              

I don’t dispute that those modes offer better fuel intensity, but I’d be extremely cautious about making any policy decisions on the basis of only a couple attributes offering benefits. Frankly, that would be very poor policymaking.  

If you applied the paper’s same logic, while I haven’t done the math, I’m pretty sure you’d likely be saying that the Government should move people away from flying altogether and make them drive, bus or train to every destination instead. That would save jet fuel and carbon emissions! 

The proposals the government are currently considering to conserve diesel and reduce transport costs are short-term, urgent actions. That is Transporting New Zealand’s current priority. 

Fingers crossed that common sense will prevail and there’ll be some smart decisions made very soon. 

Dom Kalasih, Chief Executive of Transporting New Zealand