Toll road debt going down

The Northern Gateway Toll Road turned nine last month, and so far motorists have paid more than $101 million to use it.

The 7.5 kilometre stretch extending State Highway 1 from

rewa to Pu¯hoi cost around $360m to build and was pegged by the New Zealand Transport Agency as one of New Zealand’s most challenging roading construction projects.

Constructed to provide a straighter, safer drive between Auckland and Northland, the road ploughed through Johnstones Hill at Pu¯hoi, creating a tunnel and alternative to the steep and winding coastal route through rewa, Hatfields Beach and Waiwera along the Hibiscus Coast Highway.

It was the first toll road in the country to be fully electronic. As of November 30, 2017, $100,950,000 had been collected with $67,102,000 (66.5 per cent) used to repay debt, and 33,848,000 (33.5 per cent) retained to pay for the toll systems operation.

For the current $2.30 toll for cars, motorcycles and light vehicles $1.30 goes towards debt repayment, $0.70 goes towards operation and Inland Revenue claims $0.30 as GST.

For the $4.70 charged to heavy commercial vehicles $3.39 goes to debt, $0.70 to operating costs and $0.61 to GST.

Cameras and sensors on gantries over the motorway capture the size and length of vehicles to differentiate between cars, trucks, motorcycles and and cameras capture the front and rear numberplates of each car passing through, noting time and date.

This is then packaged and sent to a central computer to bill drivers.

The $67,102m collected so far amounts to 42.5 per cent of the debt paid in just 9 years.

With NZTA stating the toll will be removed from the road as soon as the costs are repaid, the current rate of debt recovery could see this happening much sooner than the current projection of 2045.

Growing numbers of cars on New Zealand’s roads could be thanked for this. In 2010 an average of 6579 headed south along the route daily and 6490 went north.

In 2017 this rose by 35.6 per cent to an estimated 10,210 cars heading south daily and a rise of 35 per cent heading north from 6490 to 9972.