Ask any Tauranga resident what our city’s biggest problem is and chances are the most frequent answer will be ‘traffic congestion’.
Unfortunately, there’s no easy way to make our traffic problems go away. Our rapid growth, geography and high dependency on private motor vehicles are major contributors to our traffic congestion problems and because there’s little scope for increasing the number of lanes on many of our roads, we have to look for other solutions to prevent the situation from getting worse.
A study undertaken by Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency and Tauranga City Council (2023) indicated that a variable road pricing system could provide a potential solution. The study concept was titled ‘SmartTrip’ and provided a high level initial investigation to determine the feasibility of such a system. New legislation enabling such system will come into force in November 2026, and Auckland will likely the first city in New Zealand that may implement a scheme.
What is SmartTrip (Time-of-use Charge)?
If such a scheme as the SmartTrip example of variable road pricing were introduced in the future, essentially variable charges across Tauranga’s roading network would be implemented based on peak travel times with lower costs when demand is less.
Its intent would be to encourage people to think about their road use and, where they can, change their travel time, work from home, share their vehicle use, or use another transport mode like public transport, cycling or walking. Those who chose to, or have to drive at peak travel times would enjoy a faster trip, saving them time and in many cases money.
The new legislation will enable schemes to be developed in the future as similar concepts have worked well elsewhere in the world. You can learn more about variable road pricing and the SmartTrip concept study (2023) under the document library.
Council discussed the potential of allocating budget for further investigations into Time-of-use-Charge in October 2026 but decided not to do so. There are no current plans to implement a scheme in Tauranga, but could be considered by the Transport Minister, NZTA and/or Councillors in future. If this were to be the case, consultation with the community will be undertaken.
Content updated October 2026.