The Transporting New Zealand / Grant Thornton Transport Cost Index is the industry-standard measure of cost movements across the New Zealand road freight sector.
As the industry’s equivalent of the CPI, the Index tracks a weighted basket of operating costs across transport businesses, based on survey data from a range of road freight operators. Key cost drivers such as wages and fuel sit alongside other major inputs including repairs and maintenance, depreciation, tyres, insurance, and overheads.
To ensure the Index accurately reflects current industry conditions, the weighting methodology is periodically reviewed and re-based following comprehensive operator surveys undertaken by Massey University. The most recent re-basing exercise was completed using March 2023 survey data and first applied in the September 2024 edition of the Index.
As a result, comparisons between Index figures published before September 2024 and later editions require manual alignment by Grant Thornton to ensure consistency between the different weighting bases.
Following a recent member query seeking to compare cost movements between the March 2024 quarter and the December 2025 quarter, Grant Thornton recalculated the March 2024 figures using the updated March 2023 rebasing methodology.
The revised comparison shows that overall transport costs increased by approximately 1.4 percent across the period. Wage-related costs continued to rise steadily, with wages increasing 2.6 percent and salaries increasing 3.8 percent. Overheads rose 7.2 percent, while depreciation and interest costs increased 6.7 percent. Tyre costs were also higher, increasing 4 percent across the period.
Subscribers to the TNZ / Grant Thornton Transport Cost Index receive quarterly updates, detailed breakdowns across cost categories, and access to historical trend data that can assist with pricing reviews, contract escalation clauses, budgeting, and wider business planning. For operators wanting a reliable benchmark for industry cost movements, the subscription remains one of the sector’s most valuable commercial planning tools.
Purchase an annual subscription to the GT Index, including a fuel price crisis special issue, here.
