RUC's for all road vehicles, this will be fun.

[JimO]

Hopefully national at the ballot box.
However, at the minimum, labour will need to do the following:
Ditch hipkins as leader, he is a proficient minister but a seriously weak leader.
Put forward well thought out and presented policies with robust plans of implementation. Including a better ruc policy than this one.

The ill advised, arrogant and worn out "just trust us" trope was on full display from hipkins last week when labour were accused of getting carried away with the money hose during covid. His response "No we didn't" was hardly a compelling rebuttal, and simply reminded us of how in their last term they spent most of the time sitting on their hands whilst wallowing in a quagmire of Ineffectiveness.

Wouldn't it be great if NZ voters had something better than the usual choice between either the shit sandwich or turd burger combos this election?

labour will come tied to tpm and the greens and you can guarantee the greens will want to save the planet by eradicating cars from aortea so that will be a main coalition agreement

[BMWST?]

several of mine are proven to be up to 8% out, fucked if i want to be taxed another 8% charges cause of a shitty speedo,

speedo or odometer. I reckon the speedo error is "built in" but as far as I can tell my odometer is quite accurate. Time was the odometer 5km check on the highway was fairly common but not now My stand alone gps tells me my speedo is 5% out but the odometer seems accurate. My bult in GPS doesnt show the speed or distance travelled (Toyota not bike)

[jellywrestler]

So the present system for light vehicles is working, why change it?

how does a dealer checking mean it's working, i haven't even had a beer yet and confused?

[Moi]

how does a dealer checking mean it's working, i haven't even had a beer yet and confused?

OK, is the present system working?

Or, if not, then what needs to be done to it to make it work?

[jellywrestler]

OK, is the present system working?

Or, if not, then what needs to be done to it to make it work?

i've no idea, but they'll want a system people can't dodge, been driving a deisle for 20 years and cannot recall once RUC's being checked. Electronically will have flexibility, and you can bet they will be have thought this another tool in their toolbox to find unregistered vehicles
Whatever happened to the APNR set ups that popped up a handful of years ago, they came and went pretty quick, they would pick up status of vehicle and registered owner too

[Laava]

My mate in Brisbane told me they have ANPR in lots of locations and they ping for the cops if your car is unregistered, uninsured, whatever. And apparently the cops act on it as well. Queensland cops eh? So no idea how realistic that is. Cops seem pretty thin on the ground in my part of the country

[Moi]

i've no idea, but they'll want a system people can't dodge, been driving a deisle for 20 years and cannot recall once RUC's being checked. Electronically will have flexibility, and you can bet they will be have thought this another tool in their toolbox to find unregistered vehicles
Whatever happened to the APNR set ups that popped up a handful of years ago, they came and went pretty quick, they would pick up status of vehicle and registered owner too

And how will the electronically collected RUC have more flexibility?

As for finding unregistered vehicles, perhaps the answer is a dedicated traffic police. Though they must pick up a few when doing "blow-in-the-bag" checks, plus expired-CoF/WoF.

[HenryDorsetCase]

labour will come tied to tpm and the greens and you can guarantee the greens will want to save the planet by eradicating cars from aortea so that will be a main coalition agreement

and it will still be better than the shit show that is cluxy and his two extra arseholes

[BMWST?]

I have had deisels for a while now and I dont think its ever been checked. wether its checked at warrant time I cant say.
One time after a few trips away i realised that my RUC was way overdue so I bought two lots . There is a big label on your windscreen that shows the mileage that your ruc will expire at. All my liasons with "traffic" police have been random breath tests .They have never asked me what my odo reads.The label could have been 10000 kms under at one time. During the discount period i just kept buying my 10000 k blocks as required. My milege varys a lot. One trip i did was 2500ks in three days. The next few weeks i might only do 40km a week

[Gremlin]

When you go to trade-in your vehicle, does the dealer check the RUC against the odometer?

I can only say when RUC was being introduced for EVs, there was a 3 month introductory phase. The car went in for a service during this period, and the service operated on a traffic light system, green good (at the bottom), then orange (warnings) ahead of it and and the top of the report, red. The car didn't have RUC organised yet, this was flagged as missing.

Via the NZTA app, it tells me when RUC is paid up to, the brand app tells me what the odometer stands at currently. It is handy for checking you're good... from your couch.

As for bikes, I can't imagine they'll be nice enough to introduce a <1000kg class (or whatever weight), but any electronics that are mandated might suffer a hard life down rough roads...

[sugilite:Me]

Just out of interest what’s your idea of a better RUC system? At least under National it’s going to be a simple vehicle weight and distance calculation. If labour bought this in it would have all sorts of fishhooks in system around engine size and prob still give EV owners unfair advantage.

There is fish hooks a plenty in nationals plan too.
However, in answer to you question - please consider my alternate ruc proposal.

How the charges get calculated and allocated.
For Motorcycles, Passenger Cars the RUC will be based on the manufacturers stated weight of vehicles.

The trickiest part to calculate is weight based RUC on goods vehicles such as trucks and vans. They can carry both small to very heavy loads at any given time. Their impact on the road could vary from hour to hour. Tracking that weight change is near impossible.
My thinking is all goods either arrive from overseas, or are manufactured here in New Zealand.
A way to create a system to handle the extremely complex mechanics of this without blowing out compliance hardware and operational costs massively is to use a tech solution called IOTA.
IOTA is a crypto based technology. It works very differently from traditional blockchain based crypto. In comparison, it has extremely energy efficient architecture with vastly expanded capabilities. Seriously large companies are investing in this tech right now.

At the point of arrival of said goods into NZ, or at the point of manufacture in NZ - Iota assigns ownership in a digital ledger recording details, such as manufacturer, weight etc The goods then get tracked through the entire transport chain allowing for transport companies to pass on the associated weight based RUC charges to the owner. The goods IOTA id/ownership gets passed over to the new owner upon arrival.
Thus RUC can be accurately applied to the true weight of the loaded truck/van through out it's journey, no matter how many carriers are involved in the chain. I will post more information on IOTA in a separate post below this one for those interested.

Tracking The Distance.
GPS transponders get wired into the electrical system of every existing powered vehicle over a one year period at the time of the vehicles next WOF/COF. The system is turned on after that one year period has been run and all installations have been completed.

The trackers are provided by the government, and the hardware and installation costs are to be spread across the first 2 years (or designated distance) of the vehicles existence within the RUC system itself – thus avoiding high one off initial costs to the end user.

ALL data other than the actual measured distance to be stripped out at the hardware (transponder itself) level before being sent to the contracted companies servers. If they want to charge higher congestion fees, then the location data is stripped out, just transmitting the distance traveled data at the higher rate for billing purposes. Similar in the way smart power meters charge peak and off peak usage rates.

An Independent oversight position to be set up to analyse and ensure all necessary data is indeed being stripped out and privacy levels are being maintained.. Their findings are publicly published every six months with zero interference from the government of the day. I do not feel it would be over the top for them be allocated ombudsmen style powers that actually have the teeth to ensure enforcement and compliance by the government.

The system is to be run by the company that wins the contract based on the best proposal, note I say best, not cheapest proposal. All aspects of the system as presented in the contract proposal must be met, and honoured. To avoid shitty budget overruns due to fraudulent under quoting the actual costs to gain the contract (think the roading company that underbid the transmission gully highway project) If that company cannot honour the contract at the stated price, then that company is sacked and fined the total costs of the contract monies allocated to them up to that point.

The Government owns said contract and provides oversight making sure the selected company is performing as per the contract conditions.

Allocation Of Gathered Funds

The overall tax take for road maintenance and so on must be worked out, and a target set. Initial RUC are worked out using the best data available to get the best possible estimate on what the RUC will need to be set at in order to meet that target.
If after a year that target was not reached, the RUC will need to be increased. If the target was exceeded, then the surplus should be refunded back to the end users in the form of a credit applied to the next bunch of RUC they purchase.

As motorcyclists we have seen the degradation of our roading system happening in front of our handle bars for years now. So we know that realistically the road maintenance budget must increase – and not by a small amount. There is no point putting in a system that lamely kicks that can down the road as successive governments have been doing to us for years now.

At the end of the day, I'm just a guy that loves rocks and riding motorcycles. I'm no gubbermant expert, thus I do know, that I don't know what I don't know. Thus if you are a KBer with experience in areas where you can easily see gaping holes in my logic, please consider rather than kicking me in the nuts internetz stylez, maybe use your knowledge to possibly offer a solution.

And after that, go on then - you may as well kick me in my internetz nutz as is the time honoured KB way.

[Laava]

And how will the electronically collected RUC have more flexibility?

As for finding unregistered vehicles, perhaps the answer is a dedicated traffic police. Though they must pick up a few when doing "blow-in-the-bag" checks, plus expired-CoF/WoF.

Very very seldom you see wof/rego checks up here in northland. I have not personally been through one for at least 15 years. And the further north you go the dodgier the state of the vehicles on the road. So I think the cops know if they start confiscating all the unregistered or stolen cars, it will just lead to more car thefts.

[sugilite:Me]

I will let chatgpt explain IOTA better than I ever could. (I did not use chatgpt in my post above for those wondering)

How it would work with IOTA
IOTA isn’t a blockchain; it uses the Tangle (a Directed Acyclic Graph) which allows for feeless, lightweight transactions — well suited for IoT and high-frequency tracking events.
1️⃣ Registering Ownership
You create a digital twin of the goods in IOTA’s ledger (via the IOTA Identity framework or a digital asset registry smart contract in Shimmer, IOTA’s staging network).
Metadata might include:
Unique identifier (serial number, RFID tag hash, QR code)
Product details
Current owner’s decentralised identifier (DID)
2️⃣ Tracking Through Transport
At each transport checkpoint, an IoT device or company’s system submits a signed IOTA transaction updating the asset’s status/location.
Because IOTA transactions are feeless, this can happen at high frequency without cost blowouts.
The Tangle ensures these updates are immutable and timestamped.
3️⃣ Transferring Ownership Upon Delivery
On successful delivery, the current owner (shipper) sends a transfer transaction on IOTA to the buyer’s DID.
This creates an immutable proof of handover — useful for audit trails, insurance claims, and anti-fraud.

Benefits
Feeless microtransactions → ideal for constant tracking updates.
Decentralised and immutable record of events.
IoT friendly → works well with sensors, GPS units, RFID scanners.
Programmable conditions → handover can be triggered by proof-of-delivery events.

Challenges
Tech adoption → Transport companies must have IOTA-enabled tracking devices or integrate with IOTA’s APIs.
Identity binding → You must reliably link physical goods to their digital twin (RFID, QR code, NFC tag, tamper-evident seals).
Legal recognition → While the ledger can prove ownership changes, legal systems in most countries require integration with traditional contracts or registries for enforceability.
Data privacy → If sensitive supply chain data is recorded, you’d likely need to encrypt payloads and share decryption keys selectively.

✅ Bottom line:
Yes — IOTA’s structure is particularly well-suited for this “register → track → transfer” workflow in supply chains. With the right IoT integration and legal frameworks, it could provide a trustless, automated proof of ownership and movement for goods in transit.

Sugilite here for a bit - This is the chatgpt suggestion as a Process For IOTA To Be Implemented....
This looks complicated, but just know that it would just require a few taps on a smartphone for all this to happen lightning fast electronically in the background.

1. Digital Twin & Asset Registration
- Define data fields for each product (serial number, batch, specs, etc.)
- Create a unique Decentralized Identifier (DID) for each product on IOTA
- Store metadata on the Tangle (immutable record)

2. Ownership Token Setup
- Create an NFT or native token on IOTA representing product ownership
- Link token to product DID
- Establish initial owner identity (KYC optional)

3. Transport Integration
- Ensure transport companies have IoT gateways or API integration to IOTA
- Equip goods with IoT trackers or QR/RFID/NFC tags
- Define update intervals for location, condition, and event logs

4. Transfer Protocol
- Set up smart contract or multi-signature logic for ownership transfer
- Define delivery verification method (digital signature, GPS geofence, QR scan)
- Automate transfer execution upon confirmation

5. Legal & Compliance
- Draft legal terms recognizing tokenized ownership
- Ensure contracts comply with relevant jurisdictions
- Define dispute resolution process

6. Auditing & History
- Enable read-only public or permissioned access to IOTA ledger records
- Implement analytics dashboard for tracking shipments and transfers
- Keep immutable proof of all transactions for audits

[rastuscat]

i've no idea, but they'll want a system people can't dodge, been driving a deisle for 20 years and cannot recall once RUC's being checked. Electronically will have flexibility, and you can bet they will be have thought this another tool in their toolbox to find unregistered vehicles
Whatever happened to the APNR set ups that popped up a handful of years ago, they came and went pretty quick, they would pick up status of vehicle and registered owner too

I was an ANPR instructor when I was in the job. It was very restricted, as to what it was allowed to detect.

It could alert to a vast range of things, all related to registered owner or vehicle status. The level of alert could be filtered.

Thing is, it was too efficient. Most alearts were turned off, as it was too hard to drive 200 metres down the road without alerting to something or other.

So all the less important things were turned off. Like expired WoF, licence label, and probably RUC. Mind you, I'm not sure electronic RUC was a thing back then. I've been out for over 10 years now.

Mostly it was used for disqualified, suspended drivers, stolen cars, or cars with a VOI (vehicle of interest) flag. Or people with a POI person of interest flag) . It could only alert to licence plates, but if the R/O was a POI, it would alert.

It could have done so much more than it was allowed to do, but logistically it was challenging. In terms of invasion of privacy, each day the plates scanned (it would scan and record every plate it went past) the records were deleted. So nobody could establish traffic patterns using those older ANPR systems.

Of course, the pace of electronic advancement means the systems are so much more powerful and capable now, and I can't speak to how they are being used.

[nerrrd]

There is fish hooks a plenty in nationals plan too.
However, in answer to you question - please consider my alternate ruc proposal…

All of that sounds great, if it can be implemented properly.

My natural scepticism has me questioning how easy it’ll be for such a data heavy solution to maintain a consistent level of accuracy (garbage in, garbage out), how competent the GPS installers messing around with your vehicle turn out to be, and what happens if the contractors don’t underquote as such, but promise a level of service that (it turns out, having not been done before) they’re not able to deliver.