Sydney’s road network taking its toll

Anyone who owns, operates or drives a truck in Sydney is aware of the spiralling cost crisis of the city’s toll road network.

Although the state government is trying to enact some kind of reform on the out-of-control fees associated with driving on the paid roads, heavy vehicles are going largely unseen in efforts to change the landscape of the industry, even amidst the consistent price rises enacted by Transurban on the network.

January 1, 2025, saw a roughly one per cent price rise on Transurban’s owned roads. April 1 will see another. Then, after further price rises at the start of July and October, toll prices will have risen by over four per cent come the end of the year.

Transurban’s recently released its financial figures for the 2024 calendar year announced it accumulated over $1.76 billion from its Sydney assets – which amounted to almost half its overall net revenue of $3.535 billion.

Sydney’s M2 alone saw Transurban make $371 million.

So, where does the buck stop?

Two Men and a Truck, although not operating in the road freight sector, is a power player in Australia’s removalist landscape. With a fleet of trucks operating in and around Sydney and other Australian metropolitan hubs, it is being continuously stung by the cost of using the country’s most expensive toll network.

CEO Catherine Kuipers says while toll roads have become a necessity of vehicle movement in Australia’s most populated areas, Sydney’s charges are by far the most expensive.

“We operate up Australia’s eastern seaboard,” Kuipers says. “We go from Melbourne, Canberra, Sydney, Newcastle, the Gold Coast, Brisbane and the Sunshine Coast.

“The tolls in Sydney are just ridiculous, but Melbourne and now Brisbane aren’t far behind.

“I don’t understand why the toll for a truck is three times higher for a truck than a car after we already pay our RMS for road usage, and we already pay three or four times the price to register the vehicles – which is supposed to cover use of roads.

“So why do we have to pay a toll that is so exorbitant. Every few days we have $1500 coming out of our account to pay them.”

The nature of the moving industry means there is the likelihood of multiple toll trips per day for some of the Two Men and a Truck’s metropolitan vehicles, meaning costs can quickly spiral out of control when using a city’s toll network.

In 2024, when the state’s Independent Toll Review was announced, NatRoad released a statistic that said one transport company had spent over $7 million on Sydney toll costs alone, with multiple other companies easily clearing the $1 million mark.

Kuipers says while Two Men and a Truck doesn’t reach the size of some of Australia’s largest national road transport operators, the rising toll costs have still left the business feeling the pinch.

“It costs us $120 in tolls at the time of the booking just to get to a job in Western Sydney and back,” Kuipers says.

“Labour costs have been high in our industry since Covid – especially for drivers – and then they have to move furniture on top of that.

“Fuel costs and insurance keeps going up, and the price of new trucks has increased significantly in the past few years too.

“When your margins are already quite small, that extra $120 comes completely off your bottom line.

“It’s impossible not to pass that cost onto the customer.

“It’s not the customers’ fault where they are, but should they have to be limited in the companies they can choose and only use companies in their immediate local area rather than a national brand they might be more comfortable with but is out of their reach, only because they have to pay for the added tolls?

“Then, they even charge you if your tag doesn’t ping, and it’s an added 55 cents for checking the video. That could add up to hundreds of dollars a month just to check a plate on a camera.

“We have teams that go in the Cross City Tunnel, onto the Harbour Bridge, then the Lane Cove Tunnel and onto the M2, we’re talking costs that could even reach $150 a trip.”

The toll costs aren’t just influencing Two Men and a Truck’s ability to service the outer suburbs of Sydney though, it’s also restricting its ability to expand its workforce and operations in one of Australia’s most densely populated cities.

Western Sydney is notorious for bearing the brunt of rising toll costs in the city, but it is also one of the most rapidly growing regions in Australia.

18 of Australia’s most densely populated suburbs are in Sydney, although most of these sit within the central or eastern regions. Melbourne’s Southbank (13^th) and Carlton (19^th) the only non-Sydney locations in the top 20.

“We’re trying to get more teams in our Sydney operations, but we need to pay 15 per cent more to do those jobs because of the tolls,” Kuipers continues.

“We have to knock 15 per cent off the bottom line in order to serve an area that is a rapidly growing community.

“A lot of people are starting to move out west in Sydney, so we either have to reduce our business model or somehow work out how to wear those costs.

“We’re located in the north of Sydney, so we’re very constricted on space.

“We do that because if we moved out to where all the other operators are, we figured out it’s cheaper to pay the much higher rent than go and have less space than move and have to pay more in tolls.

“Do you share that cost between all your customers so it’s not just targeting the ones in high toll-cost areas, or do you spread it out and add a little bit for everybody?

“We don’t like to just charge people extra. We pride ourselves on being transparent and upfront with our costs to make it fair for everybody.

“We don’t want to have to say ‘if you live in Penrith, it’s an extra $120 to cover the tolls’, because that’s just unfair.

“You’re telling people it’s $200 an hour, $200 for travel and then another $120 for tolls. People understand but it’s a tough expense to have to pass on.

“At the end of the day, all the businesses that are experiencing stress because of these exorbitant toll prices are passing the cost back onto the customer. It gets added onto all the food or goods we purchase.”

What, then, could the solution be? Could it be as simple as replicating some of the light vehicle reform seen in the space?

The state government has been hanging its hat on the $60 toll cap for light vehicles, with suburbs in Western Sydney seeing the greatest gains from the cost restriction.

The program started on January 1, 2024, and involves drivers claiming any extra expenses yielded on toll roads.

In January 2025, Transport for NSW stated roughly $75 million had been claimed back across the state, but $140 million had, as of then, gone unclaimed.

Over 276,000 claims had been paid out with the average return to motorists standing at $277.

The western suburb of Blacktown totalled a payout of $1.25 million from 3723 claims, while nearby Auburn averaged a state-leading $579 returned per claim.

“There could be a different system,” Kuipers ponders. “There could be a capped amount or a mechanism to group a number of expenses together.

“Could there be a fairer system made out of measuring kilometres and usage, or reducing the costs for smaller trucks?

“I understand we’re using those roads to make a profit in our own businesses, but there’s just no relief for business.

“Also, it doesn’t get you there any faster. The M7 to M2 is a car park in peak hour.

“It’s just added cost on one motorway to the next one, to the next one. I can’t imagine the impact it has for the people living in the suburbs of Western Sydney.”