New scale of administration charges for toll road payments

1 July 2011

NZTA to introduce new scale of administration charges for toll road payments

The NZ Transport Agency will introduce a new scale of administration charges for different types of payments on the Northern Gateway Toll Road (NGTR) from 1 August 2011.

NZTA Regional Director for Auckland and Northland Stephen Town said while the base tolls of $2.00 per trip for light vehicles and $4.00 per trip for heavy vehicles were not increasing, the NZTA was introducing new administration charges for some payment methods as part of a broader effort to reduce the overall administration costs for processing toll payments.

“The average administration cost per transaction for the toll road is currently $0.74, but there is a wide range in the costs incurred for administering different types of payments – from just $0.13 per transaction for web payments to $0.54 per transaction for kiosk payments, and $3.85 per transaction for telephone payments.

“These costs are not sustainable going forward, and we need to look at ways to encourage more use of our easier and less expensive payment channels like the web. That includes bringing in a new scale of administration charges that will better reflect the level of service and the actual costs of the different payment channels.”

The administration charges will be levied per transaction, not for each individual toll road trip. The new charges will apply to casual telephone and kiosk payments, with no charge applying to casual web payments or pre-paid accounts.

Mr Town said the high administration costs for the 0800 telephone service were primarily due to the costs of processing payments through the toll road’s call centre, currently used by 15% of customers. From 1 August 2011, the administration charges for toll payments will be:

Pre-pay account payments: No charge

Web payments: No charge

Kiosk payments: $0.40 charge per transaction

Phone payments: $3.70 charge per transaction

The charges will only apply to single payment transactions, with a single payment able to cover several toll road trips. For example, the total cost of purchasing two $2.00 toll trips through the kiosks from 1 August will be $4.40, and the total cost of purchasing ten trips will be $20.40. The average number of trips currently purchased with each casual payment is 2.4.

The new charges will be widely advertised throughout the region in the weeks ahead to ensure toll road users are aware of the changes.

Mr Town urged drivers to take full advantage of the toll road’s electronic free-flow technology by paying on-line or setting up a pre-paid account, avoiding the need to stop or pay administration charges.

Mr Town said in order to further reduce operating costs, from 1 August the toll payment call centre’s operating hours will change from 8:30am to 5pm seven days a week to 8am to 6pm Monday to Friday – a reduction from 59.5 hours per week to 50 hours per week. Casual toll road users can pay for trips in advance or at any time within five days after using the toll road.

Administration charges for toll payment notices (issued for tolls which remain unpaid five days after using the road) will also increase from $2.20 to $4.90 from 1 August to reflect the actual cost of administering toll payment notices.

ENDS

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