Overview
- Transurban disclosed on Friday that about 90,000 vehicles were incorrectly classified on CityLink and the West Gate Tunnel, affecting an estimated 1.4 million trips.
- The misclassification came from Linkt's vehicle‑class system, which assigns toll rates based on size, mass and seating and therefore changed charges when it misidentified vehicle type.
- Linkt has apologised, said it will contact affected customers directly, issue full refunds adjusted for inflation and pay an extra compensation amount to recognise the inconvenience.
- The company confirmed drivers who were undercharged will not be asked to repay the difference and said most individual refunds are expected to be modest, with early analysis showing about 75% will be $50 or less.
- Transurban plans to re‑examine up to a decade of records, update its vehicle‑classification processes to prevent repeats and faces reputational and regulatory scrutiny after a similar billing error last year in Canberra; roughly 110 million Linkt trips occur in Victoria each year, putting the incident in scale context.