Who Gets Northern Toll?

in Motorways by Jon C — May 31, 2010 at 2:48 pm | 0 comments

More people are using the Northern Gateway toll road than forecast but on average, it costs 78 cents per transaction to operate the tolling system.

The NZTA says it’ll continue to look for ways to reduce operating costs consistent with achieving its target of 55c per transaction by year five.

Toll revenue is the portion of the tariff used to repay the debt incurred for construction of the road, while the transaction charge is used to fund operating costs.

The $2 toll for light vehicles is made up of $1.13 in revenue, 65c transaction charge, and 22c GST. This means the NZTA can only claim up to $0.65 from each toll to cover its operational costs. For a $4 tariff, the portions are $2.91, 65c, and 44c respectively.

In the latest six monthly report to December 31, the total for all traffic using the road was 4.2 % higher than forecast.

The total number of journeys since the toll road opened in January last year is 4.3 million – 3% ahead of forecast.

Most casual users are still choosing the stop at kiosks to pay.

In the last six months, 56% paid manually at the kiosks, 25% paid using the web, 18% used the freephone service and 1% paid by mail.

But nearly half of the trips were by pre-paid account holders, 94% of users pay up.

Hiring a collection agency has helped chase up debts reducing the value of unpaid tolls to 31 December 2009 to about 5% of total toll revenue, down from the 6.1% for the previous period.