Ever since the long-overdue de-regulation of the New Zealand economy in the mid-1980s that did away with state-mandated price fixing for the freight industry, road transport operators have been free to set their own freight rates.
In order for operators to properly monitor and adjust freight rates based on their costs and overheads, the Road Transport Forum and its predecessor have, since 1984, provided industry association members with access to the RTF Road Transport Cost Index.
The only cost movement guide focused solely on the road freight industry, the RTF Road Transport Cost Index charts changes across an operator’s major areas of expenditure – fuel, RUCs, wages, salaries, depreciation and interest, overheads and repairs and maintenance every three months.
The Cost Index is therefore a valuable guide for members wishing to compare their costs with the industry average and a useful reference tool for negotiating contracts.
The Cost Index, of course, is based on data that can’t just be plucked out of thin air, so it is necessarily validated by operators’ actual costs.
Every few years it is necessary to update the information that the Index is based on by conducting a cost comparison survey of operators to ascertain costs on a regional, sector and size basis.
The University of Waikato’s NZ Institute for Business Research (NZIBR) has once again been commissioned by RTF to conduct the survey for the 2019 financial year end.
This is where we need the industry’s help.It is absolutely critical to the success of the survey and the next four to five years of the Cost Index that as many operators as possible register and complete the survey.
This survey is typically conducted every five years, however, this year we have brought the survey forward because the market movements in truck cost inputs have been quite dramatic in some instances.
The aim is to get at least 200 operators to participate.
Only those businesses that can separate financial information pertaining to road transport operations should register.
Participation in the survey may incur some time and cost but failure to do so may mean an inadequate supply of information that results in an inadequate cost comparison.
This could leave transport businesses vulnerable and susceptible to much greater costs than they expect over the next few years.
By taking part in this survey, you will get access to the information it collects anonymised for collective purposes – and a free individualised report, presenting important information about how your financial overheads and returns compare with the rest of the industry.
To make the individualised report more meaningful, participating road transport businesses are categorised into the following subgroups (subject to sample sizes) for comparison with your business’ results:
- All road transport participants.
- Fleet size group and engaged in the same activity (ie, intercity or metropolitan only transport etc).
- Income group (ie, $500,000 to $1 million).
- Income group and same fleet mix group (ie, separated into fleets having predominantly single unit trucks, combination vehicles or a mixture of truck sizes).
- Activity group and same fleet mix group.
Participants’ individual survey reports will be provided in PDF format at no charge and will be able to be downloaded from the same web page as the survey questionnaire.
Of course, if you do not wish to participate in the survey, you will not gain access to this information.
It is fair to say that in the past we have struggled at times to reach the necessary number of industry participants, and the result is that gaps in the data have needed to be compensated through some extremely complicated mathematics and modelling by NZIBR.
While this has filled in the gaps, it is not ideal and can impact on the accuracy of the Index and its usefulness to association members.
Participants will first need to provide company details by registering for the survey at NZIBR’s registrations page www.management.ac.nz/register/rtfnz.
Once your registration is confirmed, you will be emailed login details (username and password) to access the online questionnaire.
Where possible it is probably a good idea to get your company accountant to fill in the survey questionnaire.
The questionnaire asks for mainly financial information related to the year-end March 31, 2019 (or equivalent eg, June 30, 2019).
The survey itself is confidential, the submissions are coded and all information submitted, analysed and reported based on code number only.
Access to the coding database is restricted.
The Road Transport Forum will not have access to your individual information.
All information will be reported as averages and percentiles, therefore no individual organisation can be identified.
The close date for submitting completed questionnaires is mid-October 2019, however, this may be extended.
