Transurban says user-pays road charges needed within decade

Australia must find a new way of taxing road users soon or be unable to fund new infrastructure, according to the boss of toll giant Transurban, who says the inevitable mass adoption of electric vehicles will soon demolish fuel excise revenue.

Toll giant Transurban is advocating a "user-pays" system, where
motorists are slugged according to the frequency, time and
location of their driving.

Transurban chief executive Scott Charlton said on Monday that while electric vehicle sales in Australia had been "anemic" to date, nothing could stop the rise of zero emission vehicles (ZEVs), and connected and automated vehicles (CAVs), which can drive themselves and communicate autonomously with other vehicles on the road.

“We now believe that the mainstream uptake of CAVs will approach some sort of critical mass in the mid to late 2030s, and the ZEVs will be a little bit earlier," Mr Charlton said.

Electric vehicles would reach price parity with fuel-engine cars by the mid 2020s, which would spur faster adoption, he said.

Read the story from The Age by Patrick Hatch - “Transurban says user-pays road charges needed within decade.”