The Cost of Moving in Victoria
Part 3 of Deliver’s 6-part series on the cost of moving across Victoria
Tolls, Charges and the Growing Price of Using Melbourne’s Roads
Before a Victorian road user receives a parking fine, speeding infringement or toll-road penalty, they may already have paid considerably simply to make the journey.
They may have paid vehicle registration; TAC premiums; insurance; fuel excise and GST; vehicle finance; maintenance and tyres; parking charges; and ordinary toll-road fees.
For commercial road users, those costs are multiplied across vehicles, drivers, routes and repeated daily movements.
A single toll may appear relatively modest. But freight networks are not built around one isolated journey.
They are built around repetition.
A truck may cross the same toll point several times every day, five or six days a week, for most of the year.
That turns an individual road charge into a significant annual operating cost. The central question is therefore not simply: “How much is the toll?”
It is:
“What measurable time, reliability and productivity benefit does the road user receive in return?”
The Toll Is Not the Fine
Ordinary tolls are separate from toll infringements. A trip without a valid account or pass can progress from the original toll to administration fees, overdue charges and eventually a Victoria Police infringement. A modest road charge can therefore become a substantial financial penalty.
This distinction matters because the toll is the price of using the road, while the later charges arise from the collection process. Road users need to understand both.
The original toll may be small, but an unmatched trip can attract administration and overdue fees before entering Victoria’s infringement system. The financial consequence can become many times larger than the journey itself.
Melbourne Toll Revenue Has Now Passed $1 Billion Per Annum—and Is Growing
Transurban’s FY2026 results provide the first official post-opening revenue picture. Its combined Melbourne network—CityLink and approximately six and a half months of West Gate Tunnel operations—generated $1.076 billion in proportional toll revenue, up $89 million or 9.0% from FY2025.
Transurban does not publish West Gate Tunnel revenue separately, so the increase also reflects CityLink traffic and toll-price movements. EastLink is operated separately and is excluded. Melbourne’s complete annual toll burden is therefore higher than $1.076 billion.
Official Melbourne Toll Reporting
FY2025, before West Gate Tunnel opened: $987 million.
FY2026, including CityLink and 6.5 months of West Gate Tunnel: $1.076 billion.
One-year increase: $89 million, or 9.0%.
The West Gate Tunnel Deal—in Plain English
Before debating individual toll prices, Victorians should first understand the overall financial arrangement.
The project was originally expected to cost approximately $5.5 billion. Its final estimated cost increased to approximately $10.2 billion, and it opened around three years later than originally planned.
The Basic Financial Picture
Original estimated project cost: $5.5 billion.
Final estimated project cost: $10.2 billion.
Direct Victorian taxpayer contribution: $4.6 billion.
Forecast toll revenue under the wider arrangement: $23.9 billion.
Combined taxpayer and road-user payment exposure: $28.5 billion.
The $23.9 billion is forecast gross revenue across several toll streams and different time periods. It is not all profit, and it should not be confused with the construction cost.
The operator must also meet financing, operating, maintenance and tax costs. However, every dollar begins with either a taxpayer or a road user.
Victorians Pay Three Times
Paid to build it. Pay to use it. Paying again in everything delivered.
First—through tax. Victorian taxpayers are contributing approximately $4.6 billion directly toward the project.
Second—at the toll point. Road users are forecast to provide approximately $23.9 billion through new tolls, higher CityLink tolls and an additional ten years of CityLink tolling.
Third—through the cost of living. Transport companies pass unavoidable toll costs into freight rates.
Manufacturers, builders, retailers and service businesses then pass those higher costs through the prices charged to their customers.
A Victorian may therefore help fund the road through tax, pay again when using it, and pay again through the delivered price of goods and services.
What Does $23.9 Billion Mean Day to Day?
The toll revenue will not be collected evenly. But spread simply across approximately 26 years, it is equivalent to:
$919 million each year
$76.6 million each month
$17.7 million each week
$2.5 million each day
This is not necessarily an economic loss of the same amount, because road users receive infrastructure and travel benefits in return.
The correct test is whether those measurable benefits are worth more than the amount paid.
Would This Pass a Normal Business Investment Test?
The original combined business case estimated approximately $1.30 of benefit for every $1.00 invested.
The West Gate Tunnel component on its own was much closer to break-even, at approximately $1.10 of benefit for every $1.00 invested.
The project cost then increased from approximately $5.5 billion to $10.2 billion. If the original benefits have not increased substantially, a simple cost-only adjustment indicates that the original combined return could fall toward approximately $0.70 of benefit for every $1.00 invested.
That 70-cent figure is an illustration, not an official updated benefit-cost ratio. It shows why the completed project now requires a new, independent assessment using its final cost and the benefits actually being delivered.
“If this were a logistics investment presented to a normal business, it would not pass first base without an updated business case. No responsible senior management team or board would accept an 85% cost increase, a three-year delay and a decade of additional customer charges without requiring the financial return to be proven again!”
The road itself may be valuable. That does not automatically make the financial arrangement a good deal for all the users paying for it.
Are Toll Roads Really Optional?
For an occasional motorist, taking an untolled road may be a genuine choice. For freight operators, tradespeople and service businesses, the alternative can mean extra kilometres, fuel, wages, congestion, vehicle wear and missed delivery windows.
The practical choice is often: pay the toll or pay through operational inefficiency.
The untolled road may be free at the entry point, but it is not necessarily free to operate on. A longer or less reliable route can reduce the number of jobs, service calls or deliveries completed in a day.
For a business, the choice is often between a visible toll and less visible costs in fuel, labour, fleet productivity and customer service.
Heavy Vehicles Face an Even More Restricted Choice
The West Gate Tunnel provides valuable freight connections, but heavy vehicles face a restricted choice.
They pay at the West Gate Freeway toll point whether they enter the tunnel, continue over the West Gate Bridge or use the Hyde Street ramps.
At the same time, truck restrictions on inner-west roads narrow the lawful and commercially realistic alternatives.
The restrictions have an understandable community purpose: removing heavy freight from residential streets and directing trucks toward roads designed to carry them. But they also change the commercial reality.
A toll can remain technically avoidable while the lawful alternative becomes longer, slower or operationally impractical.
That is why heavy-vehicle users need a stronger value case than the simple claim that toll roads are optional.
What Are Heavy Vehicles Paying?
Current daytime charges include $20.41 for a heavy commercial vehicle and $30.61 for a long heavy vehicle on a single West Gate movement.
For a continuous journey using both the West Gate network and CityLink, the daytime caps are $37.98 for an HCV and $56.97 for a long HCV.
These are published account-holder prices for July–September 2026, inclusive of GST.
The Altona-to-Dandenong Freight Test
Consider one vehicle completing four Altona–Dandenong round trips a day: eight one-way movements across 250 operating days.
Under Linkt’s eligible multi-trip discount, the first four West Gate Freeway trips are charged in full, trips five to eight at 50%, and further trips that day are free.
The sensitivity model therefore uses the equivalent of six full capped movements per day.
Published Daytime Toll per Movement
Rigid truck or semi—HCV: $37.98 per movement.
B-double 26 metres or longer—Long HCV: $56.97 per movement.
Modelled Daily, Weekly and Annual Costs
Based on four round trips a day, the modelled toll costs are:
Rigid truck or semi—HCV
Daily: $227.88.
Weekly, across five operating days: $1,139.40.
Annually, across 250 operating days: $56,970.00.
Long B-double—Long HCV
Daily: $341.82.
Weekly, across five operating days: $1,709.10.
Annually, across 250 operating days: $85,455.00.
This is an illustrative model, not a customer quote. Actual charges depend on route, time, vehicle class, account arrangements and discount eligibility. Its purpose is to show the possible scale of repeated toll exposure.
One repetitive metropolitan freight movement can create an annual toll cost of approximately $57,000 to $85,000 per vehicle.
Across ten vehicles, the exposure becomes approximately:
$570,000 for HCVs
$855,000 for long heavy vehicles
That is no longer a minor operating expense. It is a major commercial input.
How Much Time Must the Toll Save?
Toll Cost per Productive Hour Recovered
The commercial test is simple: daily toll cost divided by productive hours recovered.
Using the modelled daily costs of $227.88 for an HCV and $341.82 for a long HCV, the value changes depending on how much time the toll route saves across eight one-way movements a day.
If each movement saves 5 minutes:
The vehicle recovers 40 minutes a day. The toll cost per productive hour recovered is $341.82 for an HCV and $512.73 for a Long HCV.
If each movement saves 10 minutes:
The vehicle recovers 80 minutes a day. The toll cost per productive hour recovered is $170.91 for an HCV and $256.37 for a Long HCV.
If each movement saves 15 minutes:
The vehicle recovers 120 minutes a day. The toll cost per productive hour recovered is $113.94 for an HCV and $170.91 for a Long HCV.
If each movement saves 20 minutes:
The vehicle recovers 160 minutes a day. The toll cost per productive hour recovered is $85.46 for an HCV and $128.18 for a Long HCV.
What This Means Commercially
If the toll route saves only five minutes per movement, eight movements recover approximately 40 minutes over the day.
At that level of time saving, the HCV operator is effectively paying approximately $342 for each productive hour recovered, while the Long HCV operator is paying approximately $513.
If the average saving increases to ten minutes per movement, the effective cost falls to approximately $171 per productive hour recovered for an HCV and $256 for a Long HCV.
The toll stays the same in each example; what changes is the return. Small time savings create a very high cost per productive hour.
Reliability, fuel, vehicle wear, driver fatigue and protected delivery windows may add value—but they must be measured.
Reliability can sometimes matter more than the average. A route saving only eight minutes on a normal trip may still be worthwhile if it prevents regular delays of 30 or 40 minutes, protects delivery appointments or enables another productive movement.
The reverse is also true: if the tolled route saves only a few minutes and does not improve the worst journeys, the commercial case becomes weak.
Average time, severe-delay frequency and delivery-window performance must all be tested.
However, where measured transit times show only minimal improvement and no other material operational benefit can be demonstrated, the toll becomes difficult to justify commercially—particularly on travel-time savings alone.
“Up to” Is Not the Same as Average
Official information promotes direct port access, bypassing up to 17 traffic lights and savings of up to 13 minutes between Melbourne’s west and the port.
Those are real but route-specific benefits. A maximum advertised saving is not the average saving for every road user, direction or time of day.
Actual Usage Data Has Limits
Transurban reported about 39,000 daily West Gate Tunnel network transactions in the March 2026 quarter, with large vehicles representing 64.5%.
But public data does not show each origin, destination or actual time saving—and heavy-vehicle toll transactions can occur without the truck entering the tunnel.
Usage proves that the network is being used. It does not prove the value received on every movement.
That requires average and median travel times, peak and off-peak performance, severe-delay rates and comparisons with genuine untolled alternatives.
An advertised saving of “up to 13 minutes” may be accurate for a particular trip under particular conditions. It does not establish the saving achieved by every motorist, truck, direction or time of day.
Freight businesses should compare actual GPS and delivery data across tolled and untolled routes rather than accepting a maximum marketing figure as the normal operational result.
Toll Prices Continue to Escalate
CityLink and West Gate Tunnel tolls are adjusted quarterly.
CityLink’s fixed escalation of 4.25% a year applies for ten years from 2019; because it compounds, the cumulative increase is approximately 51.6%, not 42.5%.
West Gate Tunnel tolls also rise at the annual equivalent of 4.25% until 30 June 2029, after which CPI-based increases apply.
EastLink uses a different arrangement and states that its tolls have increased in line with CPI since opening.
The Victorian Government’s project summary identifies the higher CityLink escalation and the ten-year concession extension to 2045 as funding sources for the West Gate Tunnel—not simply reimbursement for higher road-operating costs.
From today’s published prices, a ten-year illustration using 4.25% to 2029 and 2.5% CPI thereafter produces an increase of about 34.7%.
A $37.98 HCV combined-network movement becomes about $51.15; a $56.97 long-HCV movement becomes about $76.73.
For two movements a day over 250 days, that is approximately $6,585 more per HCV and $9,880 more per long HCV each year.
Across ten long heavy vehicles, the annual increase approaches $99,000—a cost that ultimately moves into freight rates and the price of delivered goods.
The ten-year estimate is not a prediction of the exact toll in 2036; future CPI is unknown. It demonstrates the direction and scale of the pressure already embedded in the arrangement.
Even using a moderate 2.5% CPI assumption after 2029, today’s toll becomes roughly one-third higher within a decade.
Repeated across vehicles, trips and supply chains, small quarterly increases become major annual business costs.
Toll operators absorb genuine maintenance, energy, labour, insurance, technology, financing and lifecycle costs. But an automatic 4.25% increase is not proof that those costs, service quality or road-user benefits rose by the same amount.
Billing Accuracy Also Matters
Transurban acknowledged in July 2026 that some Victorian vehicles had been incorrectly classified and said affected customers would receive credits or refunds.
For a commercial fleet, a repeated classification or discount error can become material quickly.
Operators should audit vehicle classes, registrations, trip duplication, caps, discounts and video-matching charges.
Infrastructure Benefits Must Be Recognised
A balanced assessment must recognise the infrastructure delivered: a second river crossing, additional freeway capacity, direct port connections, express lanes and an alternative during West Gate Bridge incidents.
The project was also designed to remove around 9,000 trucks a day from inner-west residential streets.
More than one million trips were made through the tunnel in its first seven weeks. These are real benefits.
The credible question is whether the measurable value received by each road user justifies the price charged.
The Transport Companies Pay First
Transport companies receive the toll charge first, but they cannot absorb it indefinitely. They must recover it through freight rates, toll surcharges, route changes or reduced spending elsewhere.
The cost then moves through the supply chain. Manufacturers pay more for raw materials, distributors for replenishment, builders for materials and retailers for stock.
Eventually the final customer pays more—including Victorians who may never personally use the toll road.
A consumer may never drive through the West Gate Tunnel and still help pay for it. Food, building products, spare parts, retail stock and manufactured goods commonly pass through Melbourne’s freight network.
The toll paid by the linehaul vehicle, local distributor, tradesperson or service fleet becomes one component of the delivered price.
The gantry collects the charge once; the economic effect travels through every subsequent stage.
Tolls are therefore both an operating-cost pressure and an inflationary input. Transport companies do not create this cost; they transmit it.
One movement may add only a modest amount to one delivery. Across thousands of consignments, hundreds of vehicles and multiple transport stages, the cumulative effect becomes material.
Businesses then face the same difficult options: increase prices, reduce margins, defer investment or withdraw from uneconomic services.
Each response places pressure somewhere else in the wider Victorian economy.
What Should Be Reported?
Victoria should publish one annual toll-road transparency statement showing:
Revenue by road and vehicle class
Administration and overdue fees
Refunds and corrections
Average tolls
Operating and maintenance costs
Operator returns
Annual price escalation
For freight corridors, it should also report actual average, median and worst-case travel times, reliability by time of day, heavy-vehicle volumes and practical untolled alternatives.
Road users should see independently measured value, not only maximum advertised savings.
What Should Commercial Users Receive?
Frequent commercial users should receive:
Transparent fleet pricing
Automatic application of the lowest valid toll
Clear caps and discounts
Accurate classification
Consolidated reporting
Simple dispute resolution
This Is Not an Argument for Free Roads
Major infrastructure must be financed, operated, maintained and renewed. A user receiving direct and measurable value can reasonably be asked to contribute.
The argument is not that every road should be free. It is that every charge should be transparent, proportionate, commercially understandable and linked to measurable benefit.
The Real Cost of Moving
A Balanced Assessment
The West Gate Tunnel delivers real infrastructure benefits. It provides a second river crossing, improved port connections, additional freeway capacity and fewer trucks on residential streets.
But valuable infrastructure and a good financial deal are not automatically the same thing.
The Financial Facts
The original estimated cost was approximately $5.5 billion. The final estimated cost became approximately $10.2 billion.
Victorian taxpayers are contributing approximately $4.6 billion directly, while the wider funding arrangement forecast approximately $23.9 billion in toll revenue from road users.
The project opened around three years later than planned. CityLink tolls were increased above inflation for a period, and the CityLink concession was extended for another ten years to 2045.
The original business case was already only marginal for the West Gate Tunnel component on its own. Yet ordinary Victorians have not been given a simple, updated and independent explanation showing whether the completed project still returns more value than it costs.
The Business Test
In business, an investment that increased in cost by approximately 85% and arrived three years late would be required to return to the board for a new financial assessment.
The decision-makers would need to explain what changed, what additional benefits were created and whether the investment still produced an acceptable return.
Without that evidence, the investment would not be approved, or those responsible would face very serious questions.
From a Logistician’s Viewpoint
Victorians contribute through tax. Toll-road users then pay to use the infrastructure. Businesses pass unavoidable toll costs through the supply chain, increasing the delivered cost of goods and services for everyone, including people who may never personally use the road.
Transport companies pay first. Their customers pay next. Eventually, every Victorian pays part of the cost.
You pay to build it. You pay to use it. You pay again in everything delivered.
The fairest conclusion is not that the West Gate Tunnel provides no value. It clearly does.
The conclusion is that Victorians appear to have received valuable infrastructure through an extraordinarily expensive and poorly explained financial arrangement.
A Valuable Road—but a Poorly Proven Deal for Victorians
Although this article examines Victoria, the cost also reaches interstate carriers, national supply chains and families around Australia through administration, freight rates and delivered prices.
Before tolls continue rising automatically, Victorians should be shown—in plain English—the final project cost, total forecast toll payments, operator costs and returns, actual travel-time savings, reliability improvements and the final benefit delivered for every dollar paid.
If this financial arrangement truly represents value for money, publishing that evidence should strengthen the case.
If it cannot be demonstrated, both Victorians and businesses are entitled to ask why they were committed to paying a minimum of $23.9 billion for it until 2045.
Selected Sources and Methodology
Linkt—West Gate Tunnel heavy-vehicle tolls, caps and multi-trip discounts
Linkt—CityLink and West Gate Tunnel toll prices, July–September 2026
Transurban—FY2025 and FY2026 Corporate Reports
Transport Victoria—West Gate Tunnel opening and inner-west no-truck zones
Victoria’s Big Build—West Gate Tunnel freight benefits
Transurban—Vehicle classification in Victoria
Fines Victoria—Toll notices and infringements
EastLink—Toll escalation and 1 July 2026 CPI toll-price adjustment
Victorian Department of Treasury and Finance—West Gate Tunnel Project Summary, December 2017
Victorian Auditor-General’s Office—Market-led Proposals: West Gate Tunnel Project value-for-money assessment, 2019
Victorian Government—West Gate Tunnel project contract and 2022 settlement information
Victorian Budget and Financial Reports—West Gate Tunnel funding and total estimated investment
Financial methodology note: The $28.5 billion figure combines approximately $4.6 billion of identified State contributions with approximately $23.9 billion of forecast nominal toll revenue across the wider funding arrangement. It is a public payment-exposure measure, not the construction cost, present value or operator profit. The approximate 70-cent return is a simple cost-only illustration and is not an official updated benefit-cost ratio.
Methodology note: Freight calculations are illustrative sensitivity models using published July–September 2026 tolls and stated multi-trip discounts. Actual charges depend on route, travel time, vehicle class, account and discount application. The ten-year projection assumes 4.25% escalation to 2029 and 2.5% annual CPI thereafter; actual future CPI will differ.