The ultimate goal of heavy vehicle road reform is to turn the provision of heavy vehicle road infrastructure into an economic service where feasible. This would see a market established that links heavy vehicle user needs with the level of service they receive, the charges they pay and the investment of those charges back into heavy vehicle road services.
While more direct user charging is needed to fully close the link between the needs of users and the charges they pay, there is much that can be done to improve these linkages within the current heavy vehicle charging framework (PAYGO). These "supply side" reforms to the way governments plan, govern and invest in roads are the focus of the first three phases of the reform road map agreed by the Transport and Infrastructure Council in May 2015.
Economic analysis indicates that supply side improvements provide the majority of the benefits of implementing more direct heavy vehicle user charges (estimated to be between $6.5bn and $13.3 billion in net present value over 20 years (7% discount rate), depending on the system). More details about the reform are outlined in the brochure below.
- Heavy Vehicle Road Reform–What we are doing and why we are doing it PDF: 406 KB
- Phase one–improving transparency around expenditure investment and delivery