Images: Electric barges pitched for vehicle imports

Around 500 vehicles a day could be moved off the Ports of Auckland to Highbrook on electric barges under a plan being considered by Auckland Council.

Transport company PTS Group has submitted the proposal to mayor Phil Goff and port chief executive Tony Gibson.

Under the plan, up to 250 vehicles could be loaded on to the electric barge, which would take two trips a day. It would travel up the Tamaki Estuary to PTS’s Highbrook yard.

Vehicles would be stored in PTS’s new five-story parking structure set for construction and ready for operation in August 2021.

It’s being pitched as a solution to the long debate over whether to move vehicles off Auckland’s wharves, enabling the space to be put to public use.

Highbrook is closer to many of the compliance workshops and distribution centres for vehicles. Ports of Auckland estimates it would remove 100 truck journeys from the city centre each day.

“We have been looking at barging as an option, so we are pleased to have the mayor’s backing to take this investigation to the next stage,” Gibson told the NZ Herald.

Goff says the plan would take a lot of investment.

“I think the really exciting idea is to barge the cars off the wharf and we know that can be done. We know there are sites they can be barged to,” Goff says.

“That requires some level of investment in various things, dredging and so on.

“But what it would do is it would enable us potentially to get the cars off the wharf on the day they arrive. So you’ve got a much faster throughput,” he says.

PTS chief executive Ray Roberts says the company will be looking for any government subsidies available to help get the proposal over the line. All plans are in collaboration with Auckland Council and Ports of Auckland.

In terms of the Highbrook storage facility, building up was one of the few options available due to the increasing cost of land, he says. The construction will go ahead regardless of the barge proposal.

The company moves around 2,500 vehicles every year throughout New Zealand and is expecting demand to increase which will require more trucks and drivers on the road, Roberts says.

Northport ‘a huge opportunity’

Meanwhile, Marsden Maritime Holdings is also floating the idea of a port-side storage facility for vehicle imports at its Northport facility.

The company is urging importers, Ports of Auckland and Auckland Council, to consider its idea to “future-proof the upper North Island vehicle industry”.

It says it’s ready to engage on the strategy and would “move mountains” to bring the Northport option into being.

With hundreds of hectares of land available at Marsden Point, it wants decision-makers to explore the potential for “changing the vehicle import business model” alongside any decision about plans to barge cars from Ports of Auckland to Highbrook.

The company envisages a new business model that would see cars discharged from vessels directly to purpose-built storage, vehicle preparation and distribution facilities immediately outside the deep-water port of Northport in Whangarei harbour.

This would take place in a single movement and replace multiple movements in Auckland.

The facilities would give importers, manufacturers and dealers full access and enable them to cut back on infrastructure, the company says.

Ports of Auckland has a stake in 180 hectares of greenfield development land at Marsden Point, through its 19.9% shareholding in Marsden Maritime Holdings.

Of this is port-zoned land, 65 hectare’s is directly next to the boundary of Northport. A further 115 hectares, designated as port zone and light industry, sits behind this. The land is available for long-term lease to companies wanting to make use of the port.

“That’s a combined potential area of 180ha, more than twice the area of the 77 hectares available at Ports of Auckland,” Marsden Maritime Holdings chairman Murray Jagger says.

There is also another 520 hectares of commercially zoned land nearby. This brings the amount of designated port and commercially zoned land to 700 hectares, more than twice the amount of land occupied by the entire Auckland CBD, he says.

Marsden Maritime Holdings says Northport can “comfortably accommodate any car carrier operating in New Zealand”.

The port could store around 5000 cars on a paved storage area within the port as an interim arrangement.

“There is huge opportunity at this very moment to change the model of vehicle importation and distribution in the upper North Island, and to future-proof the vehicle industry,” Jagger says.

“We would like simply for those making the decisions about Auckland vehicle imports to take all options into account, including the Northport option.”

Concerns about adding to traffic congestion on State Highway 1 could be addressed as part of the Northport option and a wider roading and transport strategy for Northland, he says.

“We’re talking here about revolutionising the way the vehicle import industry is structured and logistics would be part of this discussion.

“Anything from the Auckland to Northport rail link already under investigation to a dedicated heavy-vehicle lane on State Highway 1.

“If all the players involved would be prepared to have a genuine, solutions-based discussion we are sure that the Northport option would emerge as a viable option for a revamped, streamlined and less obtrusive vehicle import industry,” Jagger says.