Drivers flock to Sydney’s tollways as lockdowns slow recovery in Melbourne

“Those cities that had longer lockdown periods, more restricted lock-downs, have just taken so much longer to recover. It’s going to take Melbourne a bit longer to recover, but we think it will and we see that in the strong freight numbers. It’s not inconsistent with places like Toronto and elsewhere overseas,” he said.

Traffic around major airports has dropped off and is still below pre-COVID levels.

Transurban’s numbers show most people don’t work in city centres, but use tollways to get across and around cities, a trait that is particularly evident on Sydney’s orbital roads.

Melbourne’s tollways and tunnels, which cut through the heart of the city, are seeing less CBD-bound trips. That hasn’t halted progress on building the Westgate tunnel where digging on the inbound route is 90 per cent complete, with the boring machine expected to break through in following weeks.

Transurban also has its eye on buying a chunk of rival ConnectEast’s EastLink tollway, a 39 kilometre motorway running through key suburbs in Melbourne’s east and south owned by a consortium of funds which are considering divesting.

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Former ACCC chairman Allan Fels said Transurban’s interest in EastLink raised a red flag. “There are competition issues that warrant the close attention of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission,” Fels said.

Around 68 per cent of Transurban’s toll revenue is linked to consumer price index increases, shielding the company from inflation. For Melbourne’s CityLink, that equates to a 4.2 per cent increase each year.

A trip across Melbourne’s Bolte Bridge jumped 15¢ over the year to $3.64 and driving through the Lane Cove Tunnel in Sydney will set back motorists an extra 25¢, with the toll rising to $3.77.

Off the back of record traffic, proportional toll revenue increased by 58.5 per cent over the half-year to $835 million in Sydney and in Melbourne rose 42.2 per cent to $446 million.

Charlton is confident drivers will shift back to public transport as road congestion builds. Long term there will be a trend back to the office. “Will it go back to like it was? No! Overall, we just see significantly more kilometres being driven, and these roads continue to add value.”

He defended Transurban’s toll structure, saying the company was open to creating a more efficient system and capping tolls on some roads as both sides of government in NSW are committed to reviewing the tolling system.

“We’re happy to provide ideas around efficiency, or fairness or equity, or whatever it may be around the network, and how to make the network perform better.”

“More than 80 per cent of our Australian customers spend less than $10 on average a week and tolls represent approximately only around 1 per cent of the average Australian monthly household expenditure,” he said.

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