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New RUCs came into force on August 1, extracting higher payments from nearly all truckers except those operating H-rated vehicles. Those carrying light goods are particularly hard hit.
“We’ve worked out for our company, if we carried on operating as we are, it would cost us an extra $150,000 a year,” Kris Orange, of Downlands Deer, told Rural News.
That’s across just 10 trucks. Orange estimates about 30% of the entire road transport fleet will be similarly penalised under the new system.
“Effectively we’re subsidising anyone who’s moving things that are heavy. We’re virtually having to pay twice what we used to for no benefit.”
The changes run against user-pays principles and risk driving loads onto trucks with fewer axles, rather than more, he adds.
“In the past the more axles you had, the less you’d pay. Now it comes down to what that trailer is rated to. If it is built to carry 25t, then you pay for 25t, whether you’re using it for that weight or not. Unfortunately it means where we can’t change the configuration of the trucks – such as for sire stags and trophy stags – we’re going to have to increase our prices quite considerably.”
For regular stock, switching to double-deck crates will allow loads to come closer to the RUC carrying capacity weights, but only if the customer has sufficient stock to be moved. It also means the company must have more crates – single deck for specialist use and double-deck for big loads – requiring more capital, another cost to be recovered.
“It’s been a bugbear of mine for 18 months but no-one wanted to know,” says Orange.
That’s echoed by Road Transport Association general manager Dennis Robertson. “The Road Transport Forum put in a consultation response on this months ago but it seems [the Ministry of Transport] has chosen not to look at it.”
Robertson says it’s almost as if the policy was designed to meet the funding requirements without trying to understand what the industry does. “There are some good parts and some absolutely atrocious parts.”
Some, such as a rule which would have prevented 40-foot containers being loaded to capacity if they were to be transported by road, have now been overcome, but others, such as the light goods issue, are still outstanding, he says. “It is quite difficult because it’s very load-specific and industry-specific.”
The ministry told Rural News submissions to nominate a permanent weight that would be lower than the vehicle’s normal capacity were received during consultation but were not adopted “as it would have reintroduced some of the evasion and enforcement issues in the old system.”
“While the new system will affect operators differently, it is a fair system because similar vehicles pay similar charges and heavy vehicles as a group will keep paying the same amount as previously to cover the cost of the road damage they are responsible for.
“In some situations operators will find that a different type of vehicle will be more cost-effective under the new system. However, operators carrying heavy loads will still pay less RUC if they use vehicles with more axles.”
The ministry maintains nobody will pay more than the average paid for the same trucks under the old system, plus the 4.1% revenue increase that matches the 2c/L increase in petrol excise that also took effect on August 1.
It says the ministry and the NZ Transport Agency will monitor the new system and begin a full evaluation of it within the first year.
