The Land Transport Management (Time of Use Charging) Amendment Bill is currently before Parliament.
Public feedback to the select committee is closing 11.59pm on Sunday, 27 April 2025 and feedback can be sent via this webpage.
This bill is designed to legalise time-of-use charging, road pricing, and congestion charging. It will effectively allow councils to turn existing roads into sophisticated toll roads.
The new charges will likely be variable and change due to the time-of-day or congestion levels.
In official documents, bureaucrats and politicians have been planning future expansions of the schemes, including the charges increasing over time.
The NZ Parliament website describes the bill as follows…
“This bill proposes to establish a framework to set up time of use charging schemes in New Zealand. It would enable local authorities to identify areas of high congestion, propose indicative scheme areas, and set out potential charging zones for approval by the Minister of Transport.”
Links:
*Note that the links to Ministry of Transport documentation related to the bill were not available on the Parliament website as of 6pm, 31 March 2025. Those documents can be accessed with the following links:
https://www.legislation.govt.nz/bill/government/2024/0113/latest/d16385769e2.html?
The Ministry of Transport summarised both sides of the arguments around this type of road charging scheme in their briefing to Cabinet in July 2024.
“The arguments against increased use of local variable charges include:
a. charges are regressive and inequitable and would fall disproportionately on low- income groups and the disabled. As such, the public transport system needs to be a credible alternative to cars before charging occurs.
b. increasing charges for those experiencing the most congestion would be unfair as they have already paid for these roads.
c. government tracking of movements is totalitarian and a risk to personal freedom and privacy.
d. the net benefits are marginal with considerable risk that actual costs will exceed the benefits.
The arguments for increased use of local variable charges include:
a. to be effective transport revenue tools need to reflect the costs that users impose on society.
b. pricing signals are needed as the existing average charge-based system is poor at identifying the true value at time.
c. it is unfair that users are not paying charges that reflect the actual costs of their network use.”
Cabinet Business Committee: Minute of Decision, Land Transport Revenue Action Plan: Time of Use Charging, 8 July 2024
The bill was supported by all political parties in Parliament during its first reading, with the exception of Te Pāti Māori who voted against it. Readers are welcome to guess for themselves which of the points on the above two lists will appeal to each political party.
Further reading on this issue:
OPINION: Commentary on the Time of Use Charging Amendment Bill
AA on Road Pricing: Member Views and the Association’s Position
RNZ articles on congestion charging and time-of-use charging (July-August 2024)
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