DIEPPE, NB. — "The reality is that you’ve got ongoing cost changes and cost structures in your business, whether you’re running a trucking company or a ferry company," said Don Barnes, Marine Atlantic’s vice president of customer experience, to todaystrucking.com.

He was referring to Marine Atlantic’s recent fare hikes and the Atlantic Provinces Trucking Association’s (APTA) very vocal opposition to the increases.

Those increases, Barnes said, are driven "primarily through costs of our own operation," adding that the inflation rate in Newfoundland is typically one percent higher than the rest of Canada. "The fare increases reflects the reality in doing business in that part of the country — and so we’ve had a four-percent increase in tariff rates."

Operating costs have more than doubled, Barnes explained, and Marine Atlantic expects those operating costs and security costs will go up if not stay the same.

"So we’ve instituted a security fee to recoup some of those monies. It doesn’t recoup all of it, but it does help cover some of those new and unexpected operating costs."

However, the one increase that has APTA member’s jaws hitting the floor is the $50 hike in the drop-trailer management fee.

"A lot of Atlantic-based carriers depend on Newfoundland as their core market for their business," said Jean-Marc Picard, executive director of the APTA, to todaystrucking.com in a follow-up phone call. "For some of them, this is really gonna hurt."

Barnes explains the 24-percent jump in drop-trailer fees as another example of increasing costs of Marine Atlantic’s operation. "It costs more to manage and drop trailers than it does to move full rigs."

Marine Atlantic also invested in new shunt trucks, Barnes said, explaining there have been many improvements in the service they provide, all benefiting customers.

That overall change, Barnes added, is important to take into context.

"The cost of moving goods to Newfoundland was a lot more two years ago," he explained. "While the price of the fare was less, the overall costs to the trucking company and to their customers would have been a whole lot more."

He pointed to commercial wait times during the busy summer season. In 2009 wait times were 16 hours, and now they are down to under seven hours.

"That’s a 63-percent decrease in the amount of time a commercial unit is sitting. So if your unit is sitting on our terminal property, it’s costing you money whether you have a driver there or whether you have a drop trailer there, it doesn’t matter — the unit is idle, you’re not getting any value out of that asset.

"The overall improvements have lowered the cost of doing business," Barnes stressed, adding that the impact on Newfoundland’s economy is now much more positive.

"There’s better reliability, more just-in-time, people don’t have to ship their goods earlier, and the quality of the product — especially if it’s perishable — is much higher. Now we have raised the costs because we’ve improved the service."

Picard agrees that there have been significant improvements in Marine Atlantic’s service, but he isn’t completely buying Barnes’ line of reasoning for passing those costs onto customers.

"They need to find some efficiencies within, and not just pass on whatever extra costs incurred to customers," he said.

In fact, the heart of the disagreement may be more about best practices on effectively managing a business.

"They get subsidized from the federal government, but they still have a responsibility to run the best operational and efficient fare service for the people of Newfoundland. It doesn’t mean that if they get how many millions or whatever from the federal government a year that they can just operate and hope for the best," Picard said.

Picard said he understands the need to adjust as the economy grows, and that Marine Atlantic needed to make changes somewhere, especially as traffic volume rose.

"I understand that they bought a few more shunt trucks, but they’re making more money, so they should be able to cover those extra capital costs — and they’ve got the support of the federal government," Picard said.

"We invest in new trucks every day," Picard added, "but that doesn’t mean our customers are going to pay more because we bought a new truck."

In the meantime, it looks like the federal government is not going to step-in as the APTA has requested. The St. John’s Telegram reported this morning that federal Transportation Minister Denis Lebel’s office said Marine Atlantic is an "arm’s-length from the Government of Canada and is responsible for its own operations, including fare structures."