The transport and trucking industry has welcomed the Government’s proposal to loosen regulations for heavy vehicles.
However, Transporting NZ – the national industry association representing 1100 individual road freight companies – is calling for changes to happen sooner rather than later.
After seeking public feedback, the Government yesterday announced it is preparing to remove or suspend regulatory barriers for heavy vehicles, including allowing some to carry more weight per trip to improve fuel efficiency, easing weight thresholds for EV trucks, and relaxing time, access and route restrictions for over-dimension vehicles.
Those measures are being developed to be implemented quickly if the Government moves to Phase 2 of its National Fuel Response Plan and are expected to be ready by the end of this month, if required.
Transporting NZ chief executive Dom Kalasih said it’s “great” that the Government is considering changes, but he urged officials to act now instead of waiting for Phase 2.
“We just see it is nonsensical to say or accept we couldn’t do this faster and better,” he told the Herald.
“This is a productivity improvement. Why would we wait until we reach some arbitrary point where we say, ‘oh things have got pretty bad now, let’s do things smarter’? It just doesn’t make sense.
“We shouldn’t be waiting until we’ve got a supply crisis … Here’s a smarter way of moving freight. Let’s do that now rather than wait until Phase 2.”
Transport Minister Chris Bishop said any changes will need to be weighed against things like safety.
“We need to balance that with safety and network impacts, but there are sensible changes we can make that will lift productivity without compromising standards.”
Kalasih agreed, adding that the current road user charges system manages safety and road wear issues.
“We’re not saying this is open slather, let trucks go wherever they want. This is saying, where the routes are capable of it, allow trucks to carry more.”
Over 90% of domestic freight is moved by road. Kalasih estimates only “several thousand vehicles” out of about 170,000 heavy vehicles in the New Zealand fleet will be impacted by the Government’s proposed measures.
Multiple businesses in the industry spoken to by the Herald praised the proposed changes, but one executive for an Auckland-based transport company, who didn’t want to be named, said more detail is needed around the Government’s plans.
He said his business would benefit particularly from lifting route restrictions for over-dimension vehicles.
“It’s good to see the Government looking at these things. They’re being proactive and I think it’s a positive thing for them to do,” he said. “We need to know more detail as to whether it would help us or assist us.
“We do a lot of over-dimensional loads around Auckland. For some loads if the motorway can be used in off-peak periods that would help. That would help speed up the delivery of the over-dimensional product. And that’s things like fabricated steel for big commercial builds, such as the airport.”
He said fuel costs have “more than doubled” at the peak of price increases, which in turn has to be passed on to consumers – and that has already started to impact demand for his business’ services.
“Auckland in particular has been through a prolonged downturn and probably the 12 months ending March 31 this year was probably the worst 12 months out of the three years that there’s been a downturn. The situation we observed was [that] in February there were green shoots coming through.
“Unfortunately with the Middle East situation that’s destroyed a lot of that confidence and people are now only doing what they have to do, what’s necessary rather than what they would have liked to have done. And so that’s flattened any growth as such from what we can see.”
Booth’s Logistics chief executive Dallas Vince agreed that the fuel crisis is starting to impact demand, with his customers being a lot more cautious.
“I think we’re starting to see it now. I think people are being a lot smarter around how far they’re prepared to ship something. If you’re in Dunedin and you used to buy something out of Auckland every day for your shop in Dunedin, I think you’re starting to think about, am I prepared to pay an extra 40% for that out of Auckland now, or is there something I can do locally?”
Vince also called for the Government’s proposed measures to be put in place now.
Drive Electric board member and heavy vehicle spokesman, Fabian Lloyd, said his organisation, which advocates for electric vehicle uptake in New Zealand, supports the Government’s proposal to reduce licence-class weight thresholds for zero-emission vehicles in line with similar diesel vehicles – something they have been pushing for.
Some electric utes are heavier than diesel ones, pushing them into a different weight threshold. This means people need a higher-class licence to drive them, which prevents uptake.
Lloyd believes the proposed changes should be treated as part of the Government’s policy, “rather than as part of an emergency response”, which would encourage uptake of battery electric vehicles in the transport industry.
“[We] absolutely support the change,” Lloyd said. “It would be great to see a lot more movement and support in this space to help operators move away from diesel and get away from that reliance on fossil fuel that’s exposed to the international market and geopolitics.”
Lloyd says an increased focus on electric power in the transport industry will also benefit consumers.
“Battery electric transport is significantly cheaper cost per kilometre. You’re looking at about 30 cents a kilometre for a heavy battery electric truck, versus 70 cents a kilometre when the diesel price was $1.40. Which it’s now well above [$3.33 per litre] … That’s going to have an impact on the consumer.
“That switch to battery electrics is obviously going to help our societies, help our people and have a positive impact on our economy.”
Less than 1% of New Zealand’s heavy vehicle fleet is electric-battery powered.