On Sunday, January 25th 2009 the Northern Gateway Toll Road was opened in New Zealand. The toll road took about 4 years to build, at a cost of $365 million NZ dollars! The toll fee is $2 for cars and light commercial vehicles and $4 for heavy vehicles. There is no additional charges for trailers or caravans. Good news for motorcycle drivers because there will be no toll fee for motorcycles since there are no toll booths on the road and the sensor system is not be able to detect the small licence plate.

This will be New Zealand’s first fully electronic toll road. The tolls will be calculated electronically using an image of your vehicle’s licence plate number, which is captured as you drive under a tolling point. As you approach the toll point sensors will detect your vehicle, then triggers the system to measure your vehicle’s dimensions. The vehicle dimensions are used to differentiate between a motorcycle, car, truck or bus and therefore assign the correct toll tariff. The system then compile all the information relating to your vehicle’s toll record, including the time and date you passed under the toll point, the licence plate image, vehicle dimensions, and toll tariff. It then transmits the data to their processing system to be linked to a toll account or a one-time payment. The processing system will hold toll records for up to 3 days (72 hours) to enable matching with payments. If no payment is received after 3 days, the system will automatically search for the address of the registered owner of the vehicle and sends the owner a Notice of Unpaid Toll.

To ease the frustration and help drivers  save some money, Burger King has launched a new promotion. Here is what they are offering: “Love the road but hate the $2 toll? Spend ten bucks or more at Burger King in Dairy Flat on SH1 ( last food stop before you hit the new Northern Gateway ) and we’ll take $2 off your purchase. Just show them this ad. See, we let nothing get in the way of a great trip North”. Wait a minute…is it rude to give someone the middle finger? Not so nice Burger King!