NSW Government's top transport bureaucrat backs mass-distance-location pricing for trucks
By Brad Gardner | June 17, 2013
The New South Wales Government’s top transport bureaucrat has backed mass-distance-location pricing as the “the ultimate answer” for charging trucks for using the road network.
Fronting a parliamentary inquiry examining road access pricing, Transport for NSW Director General Les Wielinga told the Committee on Transport and Infrastructure that charging trucks by the distance they travelled and the mass they carried was necessary to fix inequities between jurisdictions.
NSW bears the brunt of truck traffic on its roads despite the majority of the vehicles being registered interstate.
“All the trucks are registered in Victoria and Queensland where there is cheaper registration but 80 percent of their travel is in this State. We are doing all of the enforcement and compliance activity for the eastern seaboard so we have got those costs,” Wielinga says.
“There are inequities like that that do need to be fixed in time. Mass by distance pricing by trucks is the ultimate answer.”
Wielinga says GPS trackers can be installed in trucks to show where they are travelling and what roads they are using.
“Believe me, we would like to fix this problem because when you have a look at the location of NSW in regard to the eastern seaboard we are the middle state,” he says.
However, Wielinga has cited the distribution of revenue as a potential roadblock to adopting a direct charging model because NSW would likely receive more revenue at the expense of Queensland and Victoria.
“There is a good understanding of the issues between us [jurisdictions] but it would be difficult, for example, for Victoria to give up the registration fees it is collecting and give some to NSW because Victorian registered trucks are using our network,” he says.
“When the mass-by-distance charging comes eventually there will probably need to be some redistribution of funds to provide for that. I do not know any state government that lets money fly over the border.”
Work is currently underway on developing a new road pricing scheme for heavy vehicles. The Heavy Vehicle Charging and Investment Reform group includes representatives from government and industry.
The Committee on Transport and Infrastructure is looking into the development of a road access pricing strategy for NSW.
