The Transport Licensing Act 1931 was a
New Zealand
New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...
Act of Parliament regulating land transport. It was introduced following a
Royal Commission
A royal commission is a major ad-hoc formal public inquiry into a defined issue in some monarchies. They have been held in the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Norway, Malaysia, Mauritius and Saudi Arabia. In republics an equi ...
on road and rail competition in 1930. The Act also regulated aspects such as safety and insurance requirements for carriers and the regulation of public passenger services.
Amendments
In 1933, the Act was amended to cover all rural road carriers carting in excess of . In 1939, town carriers were regulated.
Maximum distance protection
In 1936, the protection of railways was extended to cover all freight conveyed over distances greater than those specified by the Act. This was by far the most crucial regulation, as it gave rail an effective monopoly on long-distance freight transport. Originally this limit was . In 1962 it was increased to , and in 1977 to .
Livestock
In 1961, livestock was exempted from the Transport Licensing Act.
Repeal
The Act was repealed in 1982, effectively deregulating land transport and opening the railways up to competition. The
Railways Department was corporatised as the
New Zealand Railways Corporation
New Zealand Railways Corporation (NZRC) is the state-owned enterprise that owns the land beneath KiwiRail's railway network on behalf of the Crown. The corporation has existed under a number of guises since 1982, when the old New Zealand Railwa ...
as a result, and throughout the 1980s until the early 1990s lost substantial amounts of freight to road carriers. Freight traffic reached its low point in 1993, and since then railway freight traffic has increased.
See also
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Transport in New Zealand
Transport in New Zealand has always faced many challenges, given the country's mountainous topography and a relatively small population, which is located mostly near its long coastline. Before European New Zealanders#History, Europeans arrived, ...
References
Citations
Bibliography
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External links
New Zealand Acts As Enacted - Transport Licensing Act 1931
Transport law in New Zealand
Rail transport in New Zealand
Statutes of New Zealand
1931 in New Zealand law
Repealed New Zealand legislation
History of transport in New Zealand
1931 in rail transport
Transport legislation