Rail Misinformation Needs To Stop!

The CEO of KiwiRail recently said in a speech that 70% of the network would be shut down if KiwiRail was a private company. However, under privatisation, very little was closed down!

That is why TRAC takes exception to this sort of negative comment by the CEO of KiwiRail as this is totally untrue unless a lot of mistakes regarding the funding of land transport in New Zealand are taken into consideration.

Firstly, all road vehicles between 1.5 tonnes and 55 tonnes pay just 14% of the total bill for road building and maintenance of state highways and less for local body funded roads. This is an 86% subsidy despite the fact that these vehicles cause 93% of the road damage. Also this money is spread across all operators so those operators on SH2 between Napier and Gisborne pay the same per km as those running along the Southern Motorway in Auckland. However, KiwiRail has to differentiate between lines in the Golden Triangle and lines like the Napier to Gisborne section.

Secondly all of the bouquets of rail which are the brickbats of road transport are completely ignored. These are road safety, road congestion, CO2 emissions, road pollution causing air and waterway particulate pollution, road damage, land use footprint and the cost of moving freight.

National coordinator of TRAC, Niall Robertson says, “These are important but ignored by politicians and some transport planners. Trucks are involved in 20% of all road fatalities which cost the country $12.5m according to the MoT. Congestion costs Auckland $1.5b in lost productivity each year while rail saves the same amount! Meanwhile on state highways more trucks are demanding the building of more expensive and land gobbling motorways and creating more and more CO2 emissions, but even worse, air particulate problems.”

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Chair of TRAC, Guy Wellwood says that it is becoming apparent that pollution from tyres and road dust is far more polluting than the exhaust emissions and that these are more life threatening. He quoted MoT figures which say. “….2200 premature adult deaths due to air quality (pollution from road vehicles), 9200 hospital admissions for respiratory and cardiac reactions to poor air quality and 13,200 cases of childhood asthma hospital admissions. Social costs of air pollution from transport are $10.5billion and 76% of air pollution from road vehicles is tyre and road surface pollution”. Wellwood adds that as this is a new understanding and that some new studies are estimating that 1500 to 2000 times the amount of exhaust pollution is coming from the road/tyre interface, and adds that this pollutiuon also becomes pollution for our waterways and that oceanic microplastics are created more by tyre pollution than anything else..

Robertson adds that we are building on arable land globally at a rate of 2% each year and have covered 25% of all arable land so far, and says, “this is why the land footprint is so important today too”.

Robertson says that TRAC is not anti-road transport and that road transport will likely always be involved in 60% to 70% of the freight task. Robertson says the problem is that rail should be doing 30% to 40% of the freight task but is doing just 12%.

Wellwood says that as rail is the cheapest, safest and the cleanest form of transport, then much more needs to go by rail, and Robertson says that the answer is simple and lies in the structure of land transport in New Zealand.

Robertson says, “We need to be more honest with the way transport is structured in New Zealand in order to create an even playing field between road and rail transport. KiwiRail has adopted a business style and plan which ignores a lot of potential rail customers and as led to the “mothballing” of many lines”. Robertson says, “The answer is to remove the below wheel infrastructure from KiwiRail and put it into the national land transport network and fund it in the same way that roads and road transport are funded and that mothballed lines need to be reopened to serve their regions which do want the return of rail!” Robertson adds that the regional desire to transport goods by rail should be heard by national politicians and transport planners.

Robertson adds that if there was open access then short line operators could take up all the work that KiwiRail is unable or unwilling to do. This would add a level of competition for KiwiRail, but in many areas this would mostly just add complementary services to KiwiRail.

Robertson stresses, “What is important to understand is that there are many voices in the transport sector, many of which are disingenuous and will spread false information about rail for a variety of reasons and that rail advocacy is left to the few”. However Robertson adds, “We are honest. We are also concerned by the social and environmental harm of transport, the cost of transport, proper land use, our reputation with other trading nations and some equity for the 30% of New Zealanders that rely on public transport!”

Guy Wellwood adds, “New Zealand has a great reputation of globally punching above our weight, that we look after our people and that we are an innovative nation of clever and caring people, but we have not lived up to that reputation in the way we have run our railway and the way some spread misinformation about it. We need to be thoughtful and honest as we plan our transport needs!

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