The announcement of major price hikes at the Port of Auckland has frustrated the road freight sector, who say consumers and exporters will be left footing the bill.

Transporting New Zealand Head of Advocacy Billy Clemens says Port of Auckland’s stated reasons for a 170% increase in the Vehicle Booking System fees by January 2027 don’t stack up. VBS fees are paid each time a truck accesses the terminal to deliver or pick up a container.

“It’s not like we’ve seen an associated increase in productivity at the Port,” he says.

“In fact, from financial year 2023 to 2024 their average truck turnaround time improved by only 1.5%, or 17 seconds. I don’t know of any road freight companies who could hike their prices following that level of performance.”

Trucks have been charged $130 per visit in access fees to the container terminal during peak hours in 2025. This will now increase to $180 in January 2025, $230 by July 2026 and $350 by January 2027.

“It’s not just containers either,” says Clemens. “Port of Auckland has indicated that its prices are increasing across a range of cargoes.”

“All that cost just gets passed on to industry and to consumers, and adds to the cost of New Zealand goods heading overseas, making us less internationally competitive. All at a time when the Port is already comfortably surpassing its profit targets.” Clemens says.

He says Port of Auckland’s stated justification for large peak time increases is to try and shift trucks into off-peak deliveries and pickups.

“But that shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the supply chain,” Clemens says.

“Traffic data confirms that our members already do their best to avoid peak traffic because it’s a nightmare in Auckland as it is. If they could, they would.”

He says the reality for freighters is that the customers have to be able to take delivery.

“A survey by one of our major North Island members revealed that only 12% of their customers could accept night-time deliveries of containers.”

Clemens says this is supported by the Port’s own data, demonstrating inflexible freight demands.

“Between 1 January 2023 and 1 January 2024 peak container access charges increased substantially from $65 to $95, or 46%. Port of Auckland’s annual report shows that percentage of peak truck collections only shifted from 49.3% to 47.5% from financial year 2023 to 2024 –a change of only 1.8%.

“VBS increases are not an effective way of changing freight demands, and consumers will be left to pay the price.”

Clemens says that Port of Auckland and its owner Auckland Council should be focussed on improving productivity and performance, rather than wringing more cash out of exporters, importers and consumers.

“If the Port seriously wants to lift productivity and performance, it should be incentivising dual-slot bookings (where operators deliver and pick up containers on the same trip) and improving traffic management and lane design to speed up truck turnaround times”.

Cargo owners share concern at price increases

Mike Knowles, chair of the New Zealand Cargo Owners Council, says the time-of-use approach is too simplistic to achieve significant behaviour change as the port is just one part of a complex supply chain.

The Cargo Owners Council believes it is time for benchmarking of NZ port productivity against their charge structures.

“We think the time is long overdue for a closer look at arbitrary fee increases that do not result in measurable service or infrastructure improvement – as things stand the ultimate loser here is NZ Inc.”

Dom Kalasih, Chief executive of Transporting New Zealand