RUCs to apply to all vehicles (incl EVs), replacing road user tax on petrol

Forums › Transport (cars, bikes and boats) › RUCs to apply to all vehicles (incl EVs), replacing road user tax on petrol

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#3405864 20-Aug-2025 16:21

That is why we appear to be subsiding these trucks using the roads. I am guessing the roads have really not been designed for the growing numbers and weights. But if they are charged more , that could then filter into higher prices. But it could also be more of an incentive to use rail. But the government would need to get rail working properly. I mean we have a billion plus dollar (in today’s dollars) rail tunnel between Wellington and the Wairarapa and most of the time it is empty. Yet the road over there hill is full of trucks. That doesn’t really make sense.

Benoire

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#3405865 20-Aug-2025 16:24

mattwnz:

That is why we appear to be subsiding these trucks using the roads. I am guessing the roads have really not been designed for the growing numbers and weights. But if they are charged more , that could then filter into higher prices. But it could also be more of an incentive to use rail. But the government would need to get rail working properly. I mean we have a billion plus dollar (in today’s dollars) rail tunnel between Wellington and the Wairarapa and most of the time it is empty. Yet the road over there hill is full of trucks. That doesn’t really make sense.

Essentially general traffic is supporting heavy freight and covering some of their costs. For a truck to pay is true way would generally price them out of road usage but would also impact the bus network too so we need to be mindful about the social contract side of road usage.

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#3405871 20-Aug-2025 16:46

Benoire:

Scott3:

And in terms of what the government can do to make things better for car enthusiast's in NZ:

Main thing would be a focus on better road surface quality. Chip seal wears tires quickly, has less grip, and the stones result in cars being covered in paint chips...
The move to RUC on all vehicles should be good for car enthusiast, most of whom I suspect use more than 9.5L/100km in the real world.

Unfortunately this will not happen. RCA funding has been effectively cut and councils are being asked to sweat their local road assets even more due to cost. We have established that for Auckland, that even with our high tonnage of asphalt usage, that chipseal is 2x cheaper than asphalt over the design period of the road pavement and that doesn't include the fact that the road pavement for asphalt has to be thicker and more robust with a higher CBR to avoid rutting and fatigue failure... so if Auckland cannot find the economy of scale to make this work then no one else will in NZ!

Another significant factor influencing the prevalence of sealed roads over asphalt is the underlying geology of many regions in NZ. Soils of geologically 'young' volcanic origin tend to have high water carrying abilities which results in them being very 'plastic' in engineering terminology. Those soils are therefore less rigid due to their hydraulic tendencies which makes them destroy non-flexible paving like asphalt but not so much tar seal.

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#3405873 20-Aug-2025 16:53

HarmLessSolutions:

Another significant factor influencing the prevalence of sealed roads over asphalt is the underlying geology of many regions in NZ. Soils of geologically 'young' volcanic origin tend to have high water carrying abilities which results in them being very 'plastic' in engineering terminology. Those soils are therefore less rigid due to their hydraulic tendencies which makes them destroy non-flexible paving like asphalt but not so much tar seal.

Yep - we tend to use more plastic aggregates for chipseals and more rigid aggregates for asphalts - this might seem wierd as aggregates tend to have a crushing resistance of ~130kn but the fines make up is what determines the plasticity (e.g. clay index, sand index values etc.) and therefore the quality of the aggregate performance.

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#3405877 20-Aug-2025 17:23

mattwnz:

From that video it confirmed to me that trucks are a big problem when it comes to pot holes and road damage and premature wear. But it failed to mention that the trucks are now heavier after changes National did last time they were in government. Trucks don’t seem to be paying their fair share. We need to get more of the road and onto rail. But rail options in NZ are poor and not helped by many routes being closed. Reducing the max weight of trucks may help

The numbers in the video are wrong. Trucks do thousands of times the damage that cars do, not hundreds.

Light vehicles cause negligible damage, but do occupy a lot of space and gain a lot of amenity from the roading network, so it is fair that they should contribute the majority of funds to Road upgrades & to non vehicle wear related repairs and maintenance (weather damage repairs, age based degradation reseals etc.). Waterview tunnel would not to need to be 3 lanes wide if there were no cars etc. Would really need to dig into the data to find where the correct balance falls.

Should also note that as a whole car's & trucks are net subsidies by Ratepayers and Taxpayers. The change to RUC's should somewhat improve this situation.

On heavier trucks, the RUC system strongly encourages them to spread their load over many axles (aware this causes scrubbing in tight turns), which helps somewhat. Larger trucks are more productive per driver & have less emissions per freight, So I would be reluctant to go backwards in this area.

-------

Rail Freight and costal shipping is a bit of a sad story in NZ. Both are much safer, more efficient, and have less impact on general New Zealanders, but we expect them both to operate without subsidies while we pour massive public money into road's.

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#3405931 20-Aug-2025 21:41

Scott3:

Rail Freight and costal shipping is a bit of a sad story in NZ. Both are much safer, more efficient, and have less impact on general New Zealanders, but we expect them both to operate without subsidies while we pour massive public money into road's.

With the Araterror now gone, there will be no inter-island rail freight for at least the next 4 years....

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#3405953 21-Aug-2025 02:51

Wheelbarrow01:

Scott3:

Rail Freight and costal shipping is a bit of a sad story in NZ. Both are much safer, more efficient, and have less impact on general New Zealanders, but we expect them both to operate without subsidies while we pour massive public money into road's.

With the Araterror now gone, there will be no inter-island rail freight for at least the next 4 years....

Yes and no. There won’t be roll on/roll off rail.

There will be goods delivered by rail to the ferry terminal, transferred onto trucks and then transferred back onto rail on the other side of the strait.

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#3405968 21-Aug-2025 08:09

Handle9:

There will be goods delivered by rail to the ferry terminal, transferred onto trucks and then transferred back onto rail on the other side of the strait.

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#3405976 21-Aug-2025 09:20

Wheelbarrow01:

Scott3:

Rail Freight and coastal shipping is a bit of a sad story in NZ. Both are much safer, more efficient, and have less impact on general New Zealanders, but we expect them both to operate without subsidies while we pour massive public money into roads.

With the Araterror now gone, there will be no inter-island rail freight for at least the next 4 years....

Or maybe forever :(

The government - well Winston Peters actually, I don't think there's more than lukewarm support from National, and ACT is opposed - has so far announced only an intention to sign a contract for two rail-enabled ferries this year, for delivery in 2029. It doesn't look anything like as firm as an actual plan. With the NZ dollar slipping from over US$0.70 in 2021 to under US$0.59 today, the cost of these ferries in NZ$ is going up & up.

I'm seriously worried that rail-enablement will be quietly abandoned

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#3405987 21-Aug-2025 10:30

PolicyGuy:

I'm seriously worried that rail-enablement will be quietly abandoned

Well, there are parties with policies regarding the rejuvenation of both coastal shipping and rail that you can vote for next time.

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HarmLessSolutions

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#3405990 21-Aug-2025 10:47

PolicyGuy:

I'm seriously worried that rail-enablement will be quietly abandoned

As claimed by the head of Mainfreight that will result in companies involved in the the transshipping palaver onto and off of the ferry becoming uneconomical (with added delays) with trucking then becoming the sole freight method interisland. The resulting damage to our roading will increase substantially which is unlikely to have been factored into the ferry replacement cost budget.

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#3405993 21-Aug-2025 10:53

Handle9:

Wheelbarrow01:

With the Araterror now gone, there will be no inter-island rail freight for at least the next 4 years....

Yes and no. There won’t be roll on/roll off rail.

There will be goods delivered by rail to the ferry terminal, transferred onto trucks and then transferred back onto rail on the other side of the strait.

I'll believe it when I see it. The infrastructure required to do so doesn't exist (or at least it didn't when I worked there). Sounds like a slow, laborious, inefficient and ultimately costly process lifting containers on and off trains one by one when trucks can just haul containers off the ferry and immediately head south/north with no delay.

Even if trucking companies don't have enough truck drivers & prime movers to cross the strait, Kiwirail has plenty of tugs to shuffle trailer units on and off the ferries, and then it's just a case of trucking companies picking them up at the terminal on either side, as they have been doing for decades already.

mudguard

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#3406207 21-Aug-2025 16:03

Scott3:

mattwnz:

From that video it confirmed to me that trucks are a big problem when it comes to pot holes and road damage and premature wear. But it failed to mention that the trucks are now heavier after changes National did last time they were in government. Trucks don’t seem to be paying their fair share. We need to get more of the road and onto rail. But rail options in NZ are poor and not helped by many routes being closed. Reducing the max weight of trucks may help

The numbers in the video are wrong. Trucks do thousands of times the damage that cars do, not hundreds.

I would drive SH63 every month for work (in a car), but after the Kaikoura quake and traffic got rerouted from SH1 up SH63 I started avoiding it. The road got obliterated in no time. They had to reinforce corners, the whole works.

smac

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#3406210 21-Aug-2025 16:30

The "do trucks pay enough" question is a really messy one.

Very round numbers, but the amount of RUC collected each year is about twice the amount of FED. Less than 5% of the vehicle fleet is 'heavy', then about another 20% of light vehicles are diesel. SO less than 25% of the fleet are paying 2/3 of the road tax. If you look at the RUC rates for heavy, you'll know the vast majority of RUC is paid by heavy, not light diesel.

But is that enough? I think you could make equally plausible arguments for either side of that...

wellygary

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#3406212 21-Aug-2025 16:47

smac:

The "do trucks pay enough" question is a really messy one.

But is that enough? I think you could make equally plausible arguments for either side of that...

Yip, and then there is the regional variations,

By a huge degree most of the Heavy traffic will be concentrated on the main SH trunk network, - Particularly around the Golden triangle. I doubt many of lesser travelled SHs have enough Heavy traffic to cover their ongoing up keep costs....

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