Blake Noble jumps aboard his time machine and provides his best take on all 2025 could deliver.

I’ve had enough of the hope-and-green-shoots culture of 2024 and am excited to see so much of the early-2025 rhetoric focusing on marching over barriers and simply making shit happen.

With that in mind, I thought I’d jump aboard my time machine and zip forward to December 2025, looking back at all 2025 has (optimistically) delivered to us as a country and an industry …

“The year started excitedly for a couple of large nationwide operators, which bit the bullet and embarked on the mainstream introduction of alternative-fuel tractor units, running Auckland-Wellington swaps. With immense customer support, they jumped aboard the EV bandwagon and provided a demonstration of what could be achieved in the right setting, dispelling myths and generating interest from other operators.

The catalyst may have been the arrival of our new Deputy Prime Minister, David Seymour, at the end of May. Whatever it was, the market saw a sharp lift across the year’s second half, aided strongly by the long-heralded shovel-ready projects finally being shovel-ready and a plethora of large construction projects kicking into gear. I’ve spoken to many in the transport sector recently and there’s renewed confidence about returned volume and how it’s come online. Even more encouraging has been the pipeline of work many are reporting, allowing a return to capital investment that’s going some way towards soaking up the abundance of pre-owned and near-new assets in the market.

That uplift in the operators’ sentiment has been echoed nationwide with a genuine restoration of Kiwi attitude and optimism. From retail to residential construction, there’s an energy and confidence signalling the country’s ‘hope disposition’ has been well and truly left in the rear-view mirror.

Sadly, the year did bring some attrition of carriers; some of the eyewatering(-ly low) rates offered finally came home to roost for the carriers behind them, who were forced to pull stumps and look at finding another sandpit to play in. The upside of this has arguably been a stabilisation of rates as the long-predicated recalibration of total national fleet capacity has started to come to fruition. Equally pleasing has been that, as volumes have steadied, so too has a focus on service alongside price, which customers fully embrace.

As I write this, I feel a sense of pleasure not to be playing in the likes of the North American broker and spot-rate market, where the long-forecast ‘carrier revenge’ has come to be – essentially carriers playing payback to their freight-owner customers for sustained low rates across the preceding 24 to 36 months. It’s been tough in our neck of the woods, for sure, but I’d take the collaborative approach I’ve seen across the past 12 months (and more) over the combative seesaw of United States markets.

As I sign off for 2025, I do so with a sense of contentment and a feeling that the country has got itself out of its funk and back on track. If 2025 was this great, I can’t wait for the calendar to strike 1/1/26 and the new year to continue this momentum!”

I shall now print a copy of this wishlist/ checklist, file it in a drawer, set my calendar for 31 December, and look forward to giving myself a pass or fail!