Subtract $17 for fixed costs from the 2 tonne car rate leaves 40 cents for actual wear-and-tear on the road. Take that 40 cents and increase it exponentially (3rd power) and the result is very close to the heavy vehicle RUCs minus $17 (trailers are only charged $9). Closely spaced axles seem to follow roughly a 2.5 power curve.

Canterbury University has used Transit’s CAPTIF centre to identify how different suspensions and spacing between trucks can dramaticaly reduce the damage, mainly to do with the elasticity of the gravel road base. The 2001 review of the MoT’s cost allocation model is the best source of reasonably up to data info on the subject of roading costs and where the money should come from. Good rainy Sunday reading material but best skim through to the bits you’re really interested in otherwise it can become a cure for insomnia.
http://www.mot.govt.nz/assets/NewPDFs/Cost-Allocation-Review-Final-Rep ort-3Apr01.pdf

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Maybe Friday’s traffic jam is going to be an oblique protest in support of the Green Party?

Could be, would require a more constructive attitude on the part of the Green movement.

The RUC is an enviromentally unfriendly tax which is marginally anti-carbon efficiency. The RUC is charged equivalently to a truck operating efficiently at 80 kph and inefficiently at 110 kph. The per km method of road charging reduces the benefit of fuel efficient operation and is therefore marginally polluting. It should be scrapped and replaced with a comensurate level carbon tax on diesel.

Instead of being constructive our Green movement is much more likely to denigrate the trucking industry and call them a big business lobby group.

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Maybe it is, pity you missed the opportunity. The Greens should be calling for a abolishment of the RUC and its replacement with carbon taxes on diesel of commensurate value.

The RUC is a fixed charge per km driven and as such is badly increasing enviromental pollution. A truck driving at 80 kph maximising efficiency is charged the same as a truck driving at 110 kph burning 40% more fuel – and because the truck driving faster is taking less time the RUC is effectively encouraging pollution.

The Greens are missing an opportunity to use the good publicity generated by the Road Transport Forum to promote enviromental policy. Instead preferring to denigrate the RTF as a bunch of greedy pricks led by a “former National Party MP” (party of John “greedy prick” Key) and basically say that NZ needs to raise the RUC to pay for more roads. What gives?

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respectfully
BJ

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How is that comparable ?

Truck blocking roads and a group of bikes that at worse slow few motorists down for 1-2 minutes

http://www.criticalmass.org.nz/
And Critical Mass is not a protest.
It’s a celebration and a promotion of a mode of transport

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What law are they breaking?

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In summary the STCC figures are (in millions):

RUCs, rego = $785
GST, PAYE = $0
Total payments = 785
Cap. return = $1105
Road works =$331
Police, fire = $89
Externalities=$669
Total Costs = $1089 = 72% payed for (GST excluded)
Plus Cap Ret=$2194 = 36% payed for (GST excluded)
Excluding capital return on non-recoverable assets = $1399 = 56% payed for (GST excluded). You’ll have to read the full report for a proper explanation of why there are recoverable and non-recoverable assets.

[Heavy] Veh. Operating & Ownership Costs = $5038 @ 12.5% = $629.75
This is $40m or 6% less than the costs to the consolidated account.
Adding this amount of GST changes the three percentages given above to 130%, 65% , 101% repsectively.

“Also, how do they determine what proportion of the opportunity cost from not privatising roads to assign as a cost of trucking, as opposed to a cost of car travel, buses, motorbikes, pushbikes and sheep herding?”
As Scott said, they used the MoT’s road cost allocation model.
http://www.mot.govt.nz/assets/NewPDFs/Cost-Allocation-Review-Final-Rep ort-3Apr01.pdf

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Kahikatea – The RUC increase is derived from the MOT’s Cost Allocation Model which attributes all government spending from the National Land Transport Fund to all categories of road vehicles and determines the amount that should come from all RUC categories, fuel tax and motor vehicle registration. Maintenance costs imposed by trucks on state highways are overrecovered by trucks using state highways, and underrecovered by those on local roads, but this is simply because the rates do not differentiate by location. However rail competes with state highways.

Cars don’t pay congestion costs either, so neither should trucks. That is an argument for congestion charging, but RUC isn’t a way of doing it in its present form.

The pollution costs have changed radically since the STCC report because that was based on dirty diesel with 1500ppm of sulphur. That is the primary determinant of particulate outputs. Now diesel is at 50ppm the impact is dramatically lower. I would question whether diesel cars are well tuned either, since a fair enough are badly maintained, with inadequate oil changes and the like. The STCC update should produce an interesting result for the environmental costs. Remember trains produce the same per locomotive and STCC also said the marginal per tonne km environmental cost of rail vs road varied wildly and sometimes favoured rail sometimes road.

You can argue soundly that all local road costs should come from road users, but half of these are fixed – and not attributable to any particular vehicle type. You can argue that congestion charging should be introduced. However neither of this will make any more than a tiny difference to the road vs rail competitive position. The government has been ploughing money into rail through subsidies so rail is no longer paying its costs like STCC reported.

Quite simply, while the RUC increase is justified on the face of current spending – by no means are trucks NOT paying their fair share in a way that makes any real difference to rail freight.

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Toad, in Auckland, train frequency has not been responding to demand. I bet you that any or all of the peak services on the Southern and Eastern Line tomorrow will make a sardine tin look comfortable. You Westies have trains that leave Britomart in the afternoon full of air, and are getting more services in two weeks, while the long suffering commuters of the South and East have to put up with services in hot, crowded and noisy ADKs with no chance of more services in the near future.

When are they going to spend money on us? The Eastern Line is full of speed restrictions that are slowing down the services.

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