Advocacy & policy · Transport
Time of use charging in Auckland: the record
Three schemes, not one toll. Who pays, where the money can legally go, what happens outside the line, and the application that fits the city. Not a lodged submission.
Applies to · Auckland Council · Auckland Transport · NZTA · Minister of Transport · scheme board
Checked 8 October 2026. City Builders Association Limited, NZBN 9429053649225. Same record rule as the schooling growth policy: lodged only when a date, a recipient and a reference are on the page. This page has none.
01 · Finding
City centre first. Motorway later, if at all.
Council's congestion cost is $2.6 billion a year by 2026: lost personal time, reduced business investment, lower consumer spending. The same papers put lost time at 29 million hours a year, about 66 hours for a regular peak commuter.4,7 That is an economy-wide model, not a household bill. The AA has said the figure is low because it excludes the buffer people already add to trip planning, vehicle running costs, crashes and emissions.10
The Congestion Question, in 2020, already separated the instruments. It recommended the city-centre cordon and strategic corridors be taken forward separately, centre first, because the cordon is small, lower risk, and the centre had the best public-transport alternative.25 The 2026 shortlist put a motorway charge on the same engagement menu. That is a later stage.
02 · The three options
Endorsed 25 August 2026. Engagement is not section 65E.
The Transport and Infrastructure Delivery Committee endorsed three options for public engagement expected in November 2026, after the local election.6 Councillor John Watson criticised the engagement for having no explicit “no charge” option.8 That engagement has no statutory weight. The legal consultation is section 65E, and only if a scheme is initiated after the Act commences on 18 November 2026.1
| Option | Where | Charge | Who is touched | Model |
|---|---|---|---|---|
1A City centre | Enter in the morning peak, leave in the afternoon. Motorway ring is the practical edge. | $3–$4 morning, $2–$3 afternoon. | 3.1% of morning peak car trips. About 31,500 residents inside a centre cordon.5 | Vehicle travel −0.8%. Public transport +3.6%. About 4 minutes. 6,800 hours a day. 21% of uncharged drivers faster, 3% slower. Very limited net revenue.9 |
1C City fringe | Centre plus Newmarket, Newton, Eden Terrace and Grafton. Possibly Ponsonby and Parnell. Includes Auckland Hospital. | $5–$6 morning, $2–$3 afternoon. | 5.1% of morning peak car trips. About 42,000 residents in the earlier fringe count.5 | Peak car travel −1.4%. Public transport +6%. 9,900 hours a day. Limited net revenue.9 |
3C Motorways + centre | Harbour Bridge toward Point Chevalier and Mt Wellington, peak direction, plus the city centre so trips do not dodge onto arterials. | $5 for engagement. $7 modelled. | 6.9% of morning peak trips. A Coast commuter can pay both legs.8 | 7–12 minutes on charged motorway trips. 18,200 hours a day. 31% of uncharged trips faster, 12% slower. Significant net revenue, fast payback.9 |
Charges are illustrative. Council says modelling tested $2 to $7. $5 is the engagement figure, not a set price.[7] Thirteen options were narrowed to six, then three. Schemes through school zones, or with weak alternatives, were dropped before this shortlist.[8]
03 · Map
Schematic. Not a cadastral boundary.
Council has not published a legal line. Dominion Road, Mt Eden Village, Epsom and Greenlane sit outside the fringe as described in September 2026. They come inside only by a later variation under section 65L.1
Coral is the city centre. Sand is the possible fringe, with Parnell and Ponsonby unconfirmed. Green is the motorway charge, peak direction. The dashed line is Dominion Road, outside unless the Order is varied.
04 · Who pays
Per crossing here. Once a day in London.
London is £18 if paid on the day, from 2 January 2026, up from £5 in 2003 and £15 from 2020. One payment covers the day.15 Auckland's shortlist charges each peak crossing. Off-peak is not charged in the options as described.8
| Person | Direct charge | What they actually lose or gain |
|---|---|---|
Peak driver who keeps crossing | $3–$7 a crossing. Ten a week at $5 is about $2,300 a year. | Some minutes back. A 12-minute saving each way over 220 days is about 88 hours. It does not offset a slower door-to-door bus. |
Driver who shifts off-peak | Zero, if the window is real. | Schedule. Shift workers often cannot move. |
CBD rail user after CRL | Zero if they do not drive the cordon. | The trip option 1A is built for. Council says CRL roughly doubles how many people can reach the city centre by public transport within 30 minutes.7 Reported weekly boardings rose from about 325,000 to 528,000.20 |
Dominion Road trip, school run, van | Zero on 1A. Exposed on 3C if the motorway is the route. | No rapid-transit substitute for most of these trips. A large exemption erodes the scheme.5 |
Resident inside a cordon | School run and supermarket at peak, unless a discount is written in. | About 31,500 in a centre cordon, 42,000 in the earlier fringe count. Not Mt Eden Village unless the line moves. |
Shop on Dominion Road or Mt Eden Village | No charge on the shop. | No centre-level turnover figure has been published. That is a gap, not a proven loss. |
05 · Outside the zone
The charge stops. The park, the van and the shop do not.
Auckland Council has not published a parking model, a rent model, or a centre-level turnover model for this shortlist. The figures below are overseas results. They are not Auckland forecasts.
Parking
The dodge is a free park one street past the gantry. London tightened enforcement outside the Western Extension so people would not park and walk in, and commuters waited outside for the window to close.17 A city-centre cordon pushes that park onto Newton, Eden Terrace and Grafton. A fringe cordon that stops at Newmarket pushes it onto Mt Eden and the top of Dominion Road. A motorway charge does not create a walk-in park. It creates a crawl on the parallel arterial.
The remedy is not in the time-of-use Act. A residential parking zone is a resolution under the Vehicle Use and Parking Bylaw 2025, clauses 17 and 18. It can restrict who parks, charge a fee, and exempt a resident permit.13 Scheme revenue funds it only if the section 65ZB agreement says so.
Property
| Study | Result | What it does not prove |
|---|---|---|
London Western Extension | Inside prices about 3.7% higher than homes within 1 km outside. | Not a gain for the street that received the diverted car.17 |
Gothenburg, 2013 | Condominiums inside about 6% lower than the rest of the city. | Not a transfer to Dominion Road. A weak scheme can tax the inside without enriching the outside.19 |
Singapore ERP hike, November 2010 | Retail inside about 19% lower relative to outside. Office and residential not significant. | A rate hike where a metro already existed. Not an Auckland introduction effect.18 |
TfL original-zone review | No strong overall property effect. Shops within 1 km of the edge marginally negative. | Not separated cleanly from the 2003 market.24 |
Operators
Six peak jobs at $5 is $30 before lunch. At $7 it is $42. London would have charged that van once. A work-vehicle exemption large enough to cover the fleet guts the scheme.5 A daily cap has to be written into the scheme. Section 65J notifies the charge. It does not cap it.1
London and Stockholm found no significant retail hit overall. Stockholm shopping travel fell about 17% in the trial. Turnover did not, because shops stayed open after the window. The exception is the car-borne shop. Dominion Road is that shop only if its peak customer is a driver who can switch. That split has not been published. The fringe option includes Auckland Hospital.8 Emergency vehicles are the obvious exempt class. Staff, patients and afternoon clinics are not, unless the scheme says so.
Taxis, trucks, labourers
No class of these is exempt on the shortlist. Section 65Q lets a scheme exempt a vehicle class. Auckland has not published one for taxis, couriers or trades. The draft regulations, consulted to 25 June 2026, set ratios by road space, not by occupation.27
| Who | Draft class | A peak day |
|---|---|---|
Taxi or ride-hail | Passenger car. Ratio 1.0. | Each peak crossing is a charge unless a daily cap is written in. London black cabs are exempt. Private hire has paid since 2019, once a day.15 Auckland has copied neither. The fare carries it. |
Ute, van, labourer | Light goods under 3.5 tonnes. Ratio 1.0. | Six jobs is six charges. $30 at $5, $42 at $7, before lunch. A daily cap is the instrument. A trades exemption is not on the table. |
Truck, 3.5 tonnes or over | Medium and heavy goods. Proposed ratio 4.0. | A $5 car charge is $20. A $7 car charge is $28. Per crossing. Freight often cannot move off-peak. The cost goes into the delivery price. |
Heavy buses were proposed at 2.0 in the same paper. A public-transport exemption, if any, is a scheme choice under s 65Q. Not a decision already made.27
Port charges are a second bill
Ports of Auckland already runs its own time-of-use access fee. Peak is Monday to Friday, 05:00 to 17:59, wider than the council window. Transporting New Zealand's tariff list, current as at 1 July 2026, puts the container booking fee at $180 a container in the peak and $115 off-peak. Multi-cargo is $145 and $95.28 In May 2025 the port's chief executive, Roger Gray, told Newsroom the price had not moved trucks out of the peak, and that the peak fee was to rise to $230 in July 2026 and $350 in January 2027. The published list still shows $180. Treat the higher figures as the port's stated plan, not as a fee confirmed landed.28
Those are port gate fees. They are not the council scheme. Fergusson terminal sits on the city-centre waterfront. A cordon on the motorway ring charges the trip in. The motorway option charges the same truck again at Mt Wellington or the Harbour Bridge, at the 4.0 ratio if the draft stands. No port exemption is on the shortlist. The port's own fee already failed to shift the peak. A road charge on top is a second bill on the same trip.
06 · Money
Legal waterfall, then a labelled estimate.
OurAuckland says receipts are for land transport to, from, within and around the scheme area.7 The binding rule is section 65T. NZTA disburses. Establishment, operation, billing and monitoring come off first. The balance goes to land transport in the scheme region under the section 65ZB investment agreement.1 Not rates. Not local-board money. Not parks. “Every dollar stays in our streets” is false unless the agreement says so.
After operating cost, the city-centre scheme can be close to nothing in the early years. Only the motorway scheme leaves a residue that could fund a real service upgrade, and only toward the top of the range. Capital recovery of $5–20 million a year, from the old Congestion Question band of $46–580 million, can wipe the city-centre surplus. That band was flagged as a minimum. It is not the 2026 budget.22
Method, so the range can be checked
Morning peak trips inferred at 600,000–680,000, because the 2025 study treated about 26,000 charged trips as 4% of the peak.5
Shares from the 2026 shortlist: 3.1%, 5.1%, 6.9%, widened in the low and high cases.9
Afternoon return 60–100% of morning volume. Charge inside the published band. Charged weekdays 200, 230 or 250. Leakage 20%, 10% or 5% for exemptions and non-payment.
London's first full year took £171.1 million and netted £90 million, so close to half went on running the scheme.16
Worked mid case, city centre: 640,000 × 3.1% = 19,840 morning crossings at $3.50, afternoon at 85% of that volume and $2.50, times 230 days × 0.90 collection, about $23 million gross. Motorway mid case: 640,000 × 6.9% = 44,160 at $5, plus 85% again in the afternoon peak, same days and collection, about $85 million gross.23
Census 2023 counted 539,490 Auckland households.12 Spread the mid gross across all of them and the city-centre scheme is about $40 a household. That average is a trick. The payer of ten crossings a week at $5 pays about $2,300. Harbour Bridge volume is a ceiling check, not an input: 160,431 vehicles a day in 2024/25.11 A fifth of that, one way, at $5 for 230 days, is about $35 million from the bridge alone.
07 · Law
No charge until an Order in Council. Local boards do not get a vote.
The Land Transport Management (Time of Use Charging) Amendment Act 2025, No 64, was assented on 18 November 2025 and comes into force on 18 November 2026. It creates no Auckland scheme. No scheme until regulations are in place. Consultation on those closed 25 June 2026: vehicle-class ratios, and a proposed $70 infringement per unpaid trip. A conviction offence carries a fine up to $500. Regulations were not law on 8 October 2026.1,3
| Step | Section | What it requires |
|---|---|---|
Initiation | 65C | A local authority proposes an area. Scheme board: council, NZTA, independent chair. Local boards are not members. |
Proposal | 65D, 65ZD | Scheme text and impact assessment. Diversion, retail, hospital access and resident trips belong here. |
Consultation | 65E | Public consultation in the region before the Minister sees it. November 2026 is not this step. |
Decision | 65G, 65H | The Minister may recommend an Order in Council, or not. This is the legal stop. |
Change | 65L, 65J | A boundary or price change is a variation. A cap exists only if written into the Order. No referendum power. |
Money | 65T, 65ZB | Costs first. Balance to land transport in the scheme region, under the investment agreement. |
Exempt classes | 65Q | Set in the scheme and the regulations. A full resident exemption removes a large share of short trips. |
Oversight | 65N, 65U | The Minister may direct, appoint a commissioner, or recommend termination. The Secretary must review. |
There is no statutory test that public transport must exist first. That line was stakeholder feedback in the 2025 options work, not a precondition.5
08 · Other cities
Two charged before a metro. Auckland matches neither.
Oslo in 1990 and bergen in 1986 were toll rings to fund roads. Durham in 2002 and Valletta in 2007 were real charges, on one street and a walled capital. They are not size peers.
| City | Scale | Transit on day one | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
Singapore, June 1975 | About 2.3 million. CBD zone. | Buses. Metro from 7 November 1987. | Only large-city charge-first case. Cars in restricted hours fell from 42,790 to about 11,363. Ownership was already rationed.14 |
Gothenburg, January 2013 | City about 530,000. Region about 1 million. | Tram and bus. No metro. Tunnel unbuilt. | Charged to fund an unbuilt project. Target about €90 million. Year-one gross about €72 million. A 2014 vote went about 57% against. The tax stayed.19 |
London, 17 February 2003 | About 7.3 million. Zone about 21 km². | Underground in place. About 300 extra buses. Crossrail in 2022. | Cart first for the charged trip. Entering traffic fell about 18% in year one. |
Milan, 16 January 2012 | City about 1.3 million. Metro area about 3 million. Zone 8.2 km². | Three metro lines, from 1964, 1969 and 1990. About 65,000 extra places at launch. | Cart first, plus a same-month capacity add.21 |
Stockholm, trial 2006 | City about 1.3 million. County about 2 million. | Metro since 1950. | Cart first. Do not cite as charge-before-transit. |
New York, 5 January 2025 | City about 8.3 million. Metro about 20 million. | Subway in place. | Cart first. A repair charge. |
Auckland region is about 1.7 million. Near Stockholm's county, above Gothenburg, under Milan's metro area, about a quarter of Greater London. Stockholm and Milan charged a dense core that already had a metro. Auckland is a low-density isthmus. Most motorway trips do not end in the core. A city-centre charge around 2030 is a thinner London. A motorway charge is a larger Gothenburg, without the project the charge was invented to pay for.
09 · The fit
Option 1A, rewritten to the rules that survived.
| Rule | Where it was proved | Auckland application |
|---|---|---|
Start where the alternative exists | Congestion Question. London and Milan charged a core that already had a metro. | 1A only. CRL is open. It is not a metro. It is enough for a CBD trip, not a motorway through-trip.25 |
Peak only | Stockholm: no nights, Saturdays, Sundays or holidays. Daily cap SEK 60. | Morning entry, afternoon exit. Do not fill the midday. That is a tax.26 |
Cap, do not exempt the fleet | Stockholm's trial exempted nearly 30% of passages. London charges once. | Cap at two crossings or one daily amount. Do not exempt work vehicles.5 |
Service in the same month | London added about 300 buses. Milan added about 65,000 places. | Name the feeder increase in the section 65ZB agreement. 1A cannot fund a rapid-transit line.21 |
Close park-and-walk first | London enforced parking outside the extension. | Bylaw zones on the boundary before the cameras, or do not switch them on.13 |
Trial, then a gate, not a fake referendum | Stockholm ran January–July 2006. Support moved from about a third to about two-thirds after people had used it. The Act has no referendum. | Use s 65U. Publish a kill-or-continue test at two years: peak speed, diversion counts on the boundary streets, net revenue, and bus punctuality. Extension onto motorways is a new s 65L variation, not a phase buried in the first Order.1 |
Price the queue, not the surplus | Gothenburg priced for €90 million, missed, and inside prices fell. | Stay at $3–$4 in the morning. A rise is a section 65L variation after the review.19 |
What does not fit. Singapore is the only large city that charged before a metro, and it did so on a car-ownership quota Auckland does not have. Copying the charge without the quota is the misuse. The fringe cordon is London's Western Extension in advance: it takes in the hospital, costs more, still has limited net revenue, and London later removed its own extension.
10 · What a submission can force
Three asks survive the statute. A referendum cap does not.
Split the options. A $3.50 cordon crossing and a $7 motorway crossing are different instruments.
On 3C only, ask that the funded alternative have a start date before go-live. Political condition. Not in section 65B. Say so.
Fix the boundary in the Order. Any extension is a section 65L variation with fresh consultation.
Section 65ZD must cover Dominion Road, Mt Eden Road, Manukau Road, centre retail, hospital access, and residents inside any cordon. Section 65ZB must fund the calming before go-live.
Privacy: a retention limit and no secondary use, written into the proposal. The Act has the heading. It does not have the limit.
Do not promise a public vote to raise the cap. Parliament did not create one.
November's engagement can still say “none of these.” It has no statutory weight. The weight is the governing-body decision to initiate, the scheme board's section 65E consultation, and the Minister under section 65G.
11 · References
Checked 8 October 2026.
- 1.Land Transport Management (Time of Use Charging) Amendment Act 2025, No 64. Assent 18 November 2025. Commencement 18 November 2026, s 2. Sections 65C–65H, 65J, 65L, 65N, 65P, 65Q, 65S, 65T, 65U, 65ZB, 65ZD. legislation.govt.nz.
- 3.Ministry of Transport. Time of use charging regulations consultation, 29 April to 25 June 2026. Vehicle-class ratios and a proposed $70 infringement.
- 4.Auckland Transport. Time-of-use charging, updated 28 September 2026. $2.6 billion congestion cost.
- 5.Auckland Transport and Auckland Council. Time of use charging summary, June 2025. About 26,000 morning charged trips as 4% of the peak. Resident counts about 31,460 and 41,860.
- 6.OurAuckland, 25 August 2026. Committee endorsement, Scheme Board, early-2028 decision, ministerial approval.
- 7.OurAuckland explainer, August 2026. 29 million hours, 66 hours, $2–$7 tested, revenue use, CRL 30-minute reach.
- 8.Local Matters, 7 September 2026. Option charges, trip shares, Watson on the missing “no charge” option, peak-direction both legs.
- 9.Greater Auckland, 30 September 2026. Hours saved, net-revenue descriptions, 6.9% share on the motorway option.
- 10.RNZ, 10 June 2026. Timeline. AA comment that $2.6 billion is low.
- 11.NZTA OIA-19254. Harbour Bridge average daily traffic 160,431 in 2024/25.
- 12.Stats NZ Census 2023, via Infometrics. 539,490 Auckland households.
- 13.Auckland Council Vehicle Use and Parking Bylaw 2025, clauses 17 and 18.
- 14.National Library Board, Singapore. Area Licensing Scheme. Cars 42,790 in March 1975 to about 11,363 in September and October.
- 15.Transport for London. Congestion charge £18 from 2 January 2026, once a day.
- 16.London Assembly answer, 20 October 2005. 2003/04 income £171.1 million, net £90 million.
- 17.Cheng Keat Tang, SERC Discussion Paper 205. Western Extension prices about 3.68% higher inside. Outside parking enforcement.
- 18.Agarwal, Koo and Sing, Journal of Urban Economics, 2015. Singapore retail about 19% lower inside after the November 2010 hike.
- 19.Andersson, Karpestam, Molnár and Ögren, Case Studies on Transport Policy, 2026. Gothenburg condominiums about 6% lower inside.
- 20.Informa Connect, 7 October 2026, quoting Auckland Transport. Weekly boardings about 325,203 then 528,007. Secondary report, not an audited series.
- 21.Milan Area C, 16 January 2012. Zone 8.2 km². About 65,000 extra places at launch.
- 22.Congestion Question cabinet material. Capital $46–580 million, described as a minimum. Not the 2026 budget.
- 23.City Builders Association revenue range, 8 October 2026. Estimate only. Not a Council or NZTA forecast.
- 24.Transport for London, Western Extension economic impact assessment, archived 2007. No strong overall property effect.
- 25.The Congestion Question shortlist evaluation, 2020. City centre first, corridors later.
- 26.Jonas Eliasson, Stockholm design notes. SEK 60 daily cap. Nearly 30% of trial passages exempt. Trial January–July 2006.
- 27.Te Manatū Waka Ministry of Transport. Consultation proposal: time of use charging regulations, April 2026. Passenger car and light goods under 3.5 tonnes at 1.0. Heavy buses at 2.0. Medium and heavy goods, 3.5 tonnes and over, at 4.0. Consultation closed 25 June 2026. Not yet law.
- 28.Transporting New Zealand. Port and container depot tariffs, current as at 1 July 2026. Port of Auckland peak Monday–Friday 05:00–17:59. Container booking fee $180 peak, $115 off-peak. Multi-cargo $145 and $95. Newsroom, 28 May 2025: chief executive Roger Gray on the failure of the port's own time-of-use fee, and the planned rises to $230 in July 2026 and $350 in January 2027. Higher figures are the stated plan, not a confirmed landed tariff.
Not lodged. No date, no recipient, no reference. Membership funds the research. It does not buy editorial control.