As of April 1 2017, heavy vehicle tolls will be implemented on Melbourne’s Citylink and Monash Freeway. Heavy transport operators are outraged at the surging costs that won’t affect private motor vehicle owners, with little choice but to pass these fees down the supply chain in the form of a new “toll surcharge” on their invoices. Trucks are expected to be charged 3 times the daytime rate of cars and double the night time rate.

Director of Container Transport Alliance Australia (CTAA), Neil Chambers has advised “a truck leaving the Port of Melbourne on a return day trip to Dandenong will face tolls of close to $60. With a significant portion of Victoria’s two million containers a year either going to or from the SE suburbs, this amounts to a massive impost on the container supply chain.”

What does this mean for Melbourne consumers? Well, road transport operators will pass the fees onto their customers, who will in turn pass it onto their customers and so on and so forth until it ultimately reflects in the pricing on the shelves for us, the consumers. And for those struggling to make ends meet as it is, it will be those people that suffer the most.