Source: Ia Ara Aotearoa Transporting New Zealand
National road freight association Transporting New Zealand says that consumers and businesses can expect continued upward pressure on freight costs, as Port of Auckland emphasised its commitment to port access charge increases at an industry update today.
Road freight companies and their customers currently pay Port of Auckland a fee of $130 per container at peak times (between 5am and 6pm) that will increase to $180 in 2026. Port of Auckland has indicated that this fee will be rise to $350 by January 2027. Port of Auckland handles over 800,000 TEU (Twenty-foot Equivalent Unit) containers per year and up to 27,000 truck movements per month.
Transporting New Zealand Chief Executive Dom Kalasih says that Port of Auckland’s owner, Auckland Council, should be carefully considering the impacts of time-of-use charging on freight costs.
“Port of Auckland is already using time-of-use charging at its container terminal. More significantly, legislation to allow city-wide time-of-use or congestion charging is currently progressing through Parliament. The draft legislation doesn’t currently permit any freight exemptions or discounts.”
“What we’ve seen, both with Port of Auckland’s time-of-use-charges, and city-wide schemes overseas, is that freight time demands are relatively inflexible.”
“Freight customers generally only have capacity-to-receive during business hours. When peak-time charges get introduced, rather than moving freight demand to off-peak times, you simply get additional charges piled onto road freight businesses and their customers without improving congestion.”
“When you combine time-of-use charges with the fuel excise duty and road user charge increases proceeding in 2027, subject to the move to universal road user charges, there’s going to be considerable pressure on freight costs. 93 per cent of New Zealand’s domestic freight moves via road, so cost pressures have a real impact on all businesses and consumers.”
Transporting New Zealand is encouraging all freight operators to carefully monitor their costs, and calling on central and local government to carefully consider freight impacts when considering time of use pricing.
