Sydney toll road review finds operator’s financial concerns pivotal in price-setting
A highly anticipated report has brought one state’s sprawling toll road network under the microscope.


News.com.au
March 11, 2024

Sydney tolls costing businesses thousands   

A review into Sydney's road tolls is underway as the cost of living becomes a growing issue. Another toll price hike at the beginning of April has just been added to family budgets, and those living in the city's west are feeling the strain.

The findings of a highly anticipated review into Sydney’s controversial road tolling system have confirmed the widely held suspicion that financial concerns, rather than economic management, has underpinned price-setting by motorway giants.

Led by former competition tsar, Alan Fels, the review comes after the current NSW Labor government campaigned heavily on the financial burden drivers faced during the 2023 state election, and capped weekly toll bills at $60 a week this year.

“The approach to setting tolls has been influenced more by the perceived need to cover the concessionaire’s financing costs than by the need to manage traffic on the roads,” the review’s final report reads.

“It has also not had a strong regard to principles of efficiency and fairness in setting individual tolls.”

The financial concerns of operators, rather than the economic management of roads, underpinned price setting, the review found.

The report also finds that disparate arrangements governed price-setting for many of the state’s sprawling privatised road network.

“It is only in recent years that an attempt has been made to develop for future roads a more uniform approach to setting tolls based on a common set of principles,” the report states.

“However, there remains in place a wide diversity in the way tolls are set under the different concessions.”

To be released in full on Monday, the report will also set out reform recommendations for Sydney’s tolled road systems and will disclose previously top-secret contract details that underpin the privatised road network.

Premier Chris Minns said the privatisation of Sydney’s roads had come at the expense of its residents.   


NSW Premier Chris Minns said Sydneysiders had paid the price for road privatisation.

“The toll burden is hitting families who can least afford it most, particularly parts of western Sydney that have fewer public transport alternatives to getting in the car and paying tolls,” Mr Minns said.

“We were elected with a mandate to undertake work on toll reform, to make tolls simpler and fairer.”


So far the government has ruled out introducing a congestion tax on drivers entering the CBD, similar to what is in place in London, and adding further to the toll road network.

Options that remain on the table include a move for distance-based tolling or time-of-day pricing that would make tolled roads more affordable outside of peak travel hours.

Government modelling released in November suggests estimates NSW drivers will pay at least $123bn in tolls by 2060 when existing tolling contracts are set to expire.   

Tolls are designed to compel the poor and underprivileged to forsake driving for public transport.

A society that tolerates traffic jams on freeways is being mismanaged.

Australian wether-people will bleat but not resist.

The designers of urban road systems and freeways should be taken to jammed freeways and publicly humiliated.

I have had a couple of texts asking me to pay outstanding road tolls....I blocked the number as we do not have any toll roads in WA....Colin Barnett proposed putting a toll on the Leach highway extention into Freo and that was the end of him....Surely some of these roads in the East have been well and truely paid for by now???

Frances wrote on Mar 11^th, 2024 at 2:33pm:



Not as easy as it sounds. When they build the toll roads they deliberately funnel all the traffic onto the toll road by blocking access to alternate routes.

A local who knows all the back streets might be able to get around them, but for someone not so familiar with the roads, you're often on the toll road before you even realise it.

Frances wrote on Mar 11^th, 2024 at 5:19pm:



I disagree, I say they do. I've never lived in Sydney or Brisbane so am not familiar with the roads. Whenever I travel through them, i always find I'm on a toll road when it's to late to get off. The new tunnel from North Sydney is a prime example. I didn't even know the tunnel was there and I was in it when I first went through it. No signs, no alternate routes. No chance of avoiding it.

Well - I don't use the bastard through Lane Cove any more - got caught there one night while they were doing roadworks on the exits - and couldn't get off where I wanted to - had to go further and it cost me a fortune.

Never want to live there - and the woman isn't talking to me any more anyway.  Nice, though.