Do You Manage Your Road User Charges?

Did you know GPS data from a fleet management solution can be used to claim back road user charges (RUC)? With a GPS truck tracking solution, fleet managers can pull an automatic report that shows when your vehicles have travelled off road. If you can prove what portion of the journey your trucks were not on public roads, then you can claim back the RUC - putting more money in your back pocket. 

The New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) says that anyone using New Zealand’s roads contributes towards their upkeep in some way. Most road users pay levies in the prices of their fuel. Others, such as drivers of light diesel vehicles and diesel-powered heavy vehicles like trucks, pay through road user charges (RUC). The revenue collected from road user charges goes to the National Land Transport Fund (NLTF), which funds road improvements and maintenance, public transport, road safety, and walking and cycling.

Several companies that use GPS truck tracking have already reaped the benefits. A.J. Tutill, an Auckland-based cartage company, has trucks constantly on New Zealand roads, sometimes seven days a week racking up a lot of RUC. Operations Manager, Neil Bowman, uses the Teletrac Navman system to claim back charges for off-road use. 

“It’s been a revelation for us! Now by using the Teletrac Navman system suddenly we’re getting money coming back. That’s not a bad idea!” says Neil. “Our guys are out at the airport a lot. Say they do 1km on a private road a day, 5 days a week, and I’ve got four trucks doing that. It sure adds up quickly.”

Haddrell’s, a Cambridge-based bee product producer, has also racked up significant savings on road user charges (RUC) since installing their GPS fleet management system. Owner Richard Hadrell says they do about 3000km off-road per year and with the system are now able to claim this back. 

“Before we got Teletrac Navman, it was too difficult to work out the RUC. We never knew how many kilometres we were doing off-road, so we never submitted claims. But now the system provides all the information we need then links to a PDF form. It just makes it ridiculously simple to send the claim form to the NZTA.” 

Swanson Transport too realised that claiming back RUC would save them a lot of cash. They’re a specialist hiab and general freight provider which operates across the greater Auckland area carting a range of manufacturing and construction-related products. General Manager, Nick Longuet-Higgins says previously, no RUC claims were made because it wasn’t worth calculating manually, but now every time the trucks travel off road it’s logged automatically, and there is no refuting the data. The company is now getting a significant refund in road user charges every month.  

It’s clear the benefits speak for themselves. Now back to the question, do you manage your RUC? And if not, why not?