Tickets tax toll booths

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33804, 29 March 1975, Page 1

Tickets tax toll booths

Running a road tunnel has its problems, one of which being what to do with all the used toll tickets handed in at the toll plaza by regular customers.

By law the tickets must be kept each financial year for spot checks by the Audit Department and their disposal raises problems of security. With about $250,000 worth of tickets used through the Christchurch-Lyttelton road tunnel each year, the problem is not a small one. In the past, each ticket has had to be defaced in some way so that it cannot be re-used and the system used was very timeconsuming: a chisel and hammer job to cut off the comer of the tickets, but at best only 30 or so tickets can be dealt with at one blow.. Efforts to find some means of punching the used tickets in larger groups have been fruitless and the staff of the Lyttelton tunnel have

about three months supply of tickets waiting for the chop. But the District Supervisor of the Audit Department in Christchurch (Mr J. P. Hynes) has come to the rescue. Physical defacing of the tickets will not be necessary as long as security is satisfactory. So now the tunnel staff will keep the stacks of tickets in the safe until inspection, after which they will be destroyed under supervision in the Lyttelton Harbour Board’s incinerator.