The online home of the Bus Industry Confederation and the Australian Public Transport Industrial Association
The Effective Life of Vehicles
There are a wide range of external costs of transport, particularly road transport, which are not met by road users, resulting in excessive levels of traffic. Congestion pricing, in particular, is important since it is of a similar order of magnitude to annual road construction and maintenance costs (about $12 billion).
The BIC proposes a comprehensive externality based road pricing regime is implemented to replace the current fuel excise charges and associated heavy vehicle charging systems.
A comprehensive road pricing system will result in a more rational set of travel choices, reduced demand for new infrastructure, and achievement of significant economic benefits through lower congestion costs, as well as cutting other external costs of road use.
We propose the new road pricing system should include:
| Read the BIC response to the COAG Road Reform Plan where we outline a solution for the road pricing system in Australia including heavy vehicles and cars. |
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| Environmental and Social Taxes, Road Pricing Reform in Australia - A working paper regarding road pricing from Professors Stanley and Hensher at the University of Sydney. This paper was presented as the BIC submission to the Commonwealth Government's Tax Reform Forum in 2011. |
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The bus industry often suffers from the “one size fits all” approach taken to the regulation and pricing of heavy vehicles.
The BIC advocates for a heavy vehicle pricing regime that recognises the vital difference in task of trucks and buses and charges accordingly.
The BIC believes major issues that need to be addressed by heavy vehicle road pricing reform are:
The provision of Fringe Benefits Tax (FBT) benefits for public transport travel by employees will encourage public transport use for work trips.
With almost 85 per cent of total trips in Australia taking place within 100kms of the commuter’s home, and a significant portion of these trips being work related, the use of public transport for work related travel can play a significant part in the reduction of congestion and transport related emissions and the achievement of targets.
Making the cost of periodic public transport tickets, for the purpose of travel to and from work, tax deductible will further incentivise public transport use.
| Read the BIC Submission to the Review of Australia's Future Tax System |
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The economic life of a bus is influenced by a variety of factors including its daily workload, the work conditions it faces, the regulatory environment it operates in, the quality of the bus itself and changing technology.
About 80 per cent of the lifetime work of a bus is undertaken in the first seven years of its life.
The current capped effective life of vehicles is 7.5 years.
The BIC seeks the consideration of a capped 5 year Effective Life Depreciation rate to assist Industry meet the requirements of the Accessible Transport Standards under the Federal Government’s Disability Discrimination Act and encourage the uptake of new fuel efficiency and emissions technology within the Australian bus fleet.
| Read BIC's research into the economic impacts of altering the effective life of buses for tax purposes. |
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