The NZ Transport Agency is responding to feedback it has received from customers and will open its Northern Gateway Toll Road call centre on Waitangi Day (Monday, 6 February) for people who want to pay their tolls by telephone.
The call centre will be opened from 8am to 6pm on Waitangi Day, but will be closed this Saturday and Sunday
The NZTA decided last August to close the call centre at weekends and on statutory holidays when it introduced a series of measures to reduce its administration costs for operating the toll road, located on State Highway 1 north of Auckland.
The way statutory holidays fell at Christmas and New Year meant the call centre was closed on two occasions for four-day periods.
“Those closures did trigger many complaints from people unhappy that they were unable to pay their tolls by telephone. We have listened to their concerns, and our response is to give people the additional payment choice by having the call centre open next Monday,” says the NZTA’s Regional Director for Auckland and Northland, Stephen Town.
“We do have to balance our obligations to keep costs down with a commitment to provide choices for our toll road customers, especially at those times of the year when a lot of people are travelling. Waitangi Weekend is the last long holiday break until Easter, and we hope our decision to open the call centre on Monday will help make the weekend an enjoyable one.”
People who do want to pay by freephone 0800 40 20 20 will still incur an administration charge of $3.70 for each transaction. For example, using the call centre to pay for a $2 toll will cost $5.70 - the $2 toll plus the $3.70 administration charge. If someone buys 10 trips by phone it will cost $23.70 - $20 for the 10 trips plus the $3.70 administration charge.
The administration charges were introduced by the NZTA to reflect the cost of processing the toll road’s different payment options. In addition to the $3.70 call centre fee, an administration charge of 40c applies for each transaction made at the toll road kiosks. No administration charge applies for tolls bought on-line at www.tollroad.govt.nz(external link), or for toll road accounts.
Mr Town urged drivers to take full advantage of the toll road’s electronic free-flow technology by paying on-line or setting up a pre-paid account, avoiding the need to stop or to pay an administration charge.
People have up to five working days to pay after using the toll road.
Mr Town says a decision to open the call centre opened at Easter will be made after it has reviewed the centre’s operation on Waitangi Day.
