This week’s launch of a map of approved routes for 1,000+ configurations across multiple jurisdictions is welcome, but what Australian needs is a national rulebook and decision maker
New entrants to the trucking industry are consistently shocked by its astonishing complexity. In addition to being one of the mostly tightly regulated industries in Australia, it is subject to the unique and often surprising policy whims and decisions of officials across its six states, two territories, hundreds of local councils, and dozens of third-party infrastructure owners.
Nowhere are the resulting convolutions felt more sharply than in the topic of heavy vehicle access, which has become the perennial hindrance that limits trucking productivity in this country.
Despite this, regulators and industry have together achieved amazing successes in the form of introducing new and innovative high-productivity vehicles onto the road network and can rightly claim to be a world-leader in that regard.
Those achievements must be acknowledged and celebrated. But the access roadblock remains and has undoubtedly put paid to countless other productivity initiatives over the years.
Looking back, Australia has had a few attempts at solving it, with varying degrees of success. There have been two new developments and announcements this month from regulators. Could these bring us closer to a solution than ever?
A national law
Let’s look back to 2011, when Australia’s states and territories signed the Intergovernmental Agreement on Heavy Vehicle Regulatory Reform.
It agreed to establish a national system of regulation for all heavy vehicles weighing more than 4.5 tonnes, consisting of uniform laws administered by a single national regulator.
You’re correct if you think that sounds familiar, because it was the decision that led directly to the creation of the Heavy Vehicle National Law (HVNL), and later, the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator (NHVR).
A neat solution, but not a complete one, by any stretch. In a superb display of national solidarity, both Western Australia and the Northern Territory opted not to become signatories to the new national law, leaving the regulatory landscape distinctly skewed towards the eastern states, and not particularly national at all.
In a superb display of national solidarity, both Western Australia and the Northern Territory opted not to become signatories to the new national law.
Nonetheless, the NHVR created clever systems and processes that centralised a great deal of the access request administration in the years that followed.
Instead of dealing with each access decision maker individually, an operator submitted one access request to the NHVR, which then passed it onto each affected party, collated the responses, and informed the applicant of the final decision.
Disregarding the early teething problems those systems had, they certainly reduced the administration required to manage access requests.
But they didn’t always lead to better access decisions for the industry, nor more productive outcomes. And confusingly, obtaining access approvals from third-party entities were still the responsibility of the applicant to chase down, a curious omission that remains part of the process to this day.
A set of national notices
In a further attempt to reduce and streamline access decisions across different jurisdictions, the NHVR developed a series of national notices. The purpose of a notice is to authorise a class of vehicle to use certain parts of the road network under certain conditions, such as restricted access vehicles operating under exemption from specific limits (e.g. mass, dimension) made under the HVNL.
The broad idea was that obtaining up-front agreement from road managers would eliminate the need for industry to request access for those vehicle types. This would deliver on the original goals of the 2011 agreement, being improved safety and reduced costs and regulatory burden for Australian transport companies.
At present, there are more than 20 national notices that allow operation under various exemptions from the mass and dimension limits imposed by the HVNL across the eastern states.
Whilst being a universally positive step for industry, the notices are not without limitations. The principal concern is that concessions are made to achieve uniform agreement across all access decision makers.
This can result in access by the ‘lowest common denominator’. In other words, the size/mass of the vehicle combination in question is downgraded to suit the preferences of the access decision maker holding the strictest view.
This means that operators using the notices may enjoy an easier approval pathway but leave unrealised productivity gains on the table.
The other concern is the multitude of road manager conditions that some notices contain. Imposing unique conditions that only apply to some states and/or local councils weakens the national notice concept. Additionally, any road manger can simply ‘opt out’ of a national notice, and many often do.
Is it right to call a legislative instrument a ‘national notice’ when it simply collates a patchwork group of access approvals across one half of the country, while simultaneously listing unique and inconsistent requirements only applicable to some states and areas?
A national network map
If legislative solutions aren’t going to save us, can we find salvation in technology? Perhaps. This week, the NHVR launched its first national network map, an online portal that shows national road network information in a single, central location.
This new capability sits alongside the existing NHVR route planner. Both are built on the same access data but have slightly different capabilities.
The route planner allows a user to map a route of interest and overlay a range of state- and commodity-based networks to determine the extent of access coverage.
Centralising information brings advantages, but when a user views a single vehicle category, the complexity of Australia’s access puzzle is on full display.
In contrast, the national network map does not include a routing function, but instead allows users to view networks based on vehicle categories and legislative instruments.
Has this simplified access? Not completely. Centralising information brings distinct advantages, but when a user views a single vehicle category, the complexity of Australia’s access puzzle is on full display.
For example, the network map for the humble B-double extends to 75 unique variants of length, axle configuration, mass, height, commodity hauled, and state-based conditions.
For road trains, that number increases to a mind-boggling 203 vehicle variants. Even so, Western Australia and Northern Territory vehicles/networks are still not captured.
A national automated access system
At the same time, Austroads (the association of the Australian and New Zealand transport agencies, representing road managers across all levels of government), announced that it had commenced a new project to develop a National Automated Access System (NAAS).
The key capability of the proposed NAAS is that it will enable operators to enter their vehicle details (e.g. mass, dimensions) online and the system will return a map that shows where they can travel with that vehicle.
That capability is also proposed to replace the traditional permitting system. In that context, it represents a clear step up from the current national maps and journey planners.
What is the likelihood that such an ambitious proposal will succeed? Better than you might initially think. The NAAS will be based on and informed by the successful Tasmanian Heavy Vehicle Access Management System (HVAMS), which has similar characteristics.
Transitioning that system from one state to many may ultimately prove too difficult, but we are likely to find out at the first step, which is a legal assessment of how it will work across the states and territories.
A national rulebook and decision maker
While these developments are promising, and all efforts to improve access for industry are welcome, they do not address the root cause of the access problem, which lies in the number of access decision makers, and the power they hold.
So long as this situation exists, the industry will suffer from sub-optimal access decisions, and greater complexity.
They do not address the root cause of the access problem, which lies in the number of access decision makers, and the power they hold.
Australia requires a truly national set of heavy vehicle regulations that equally apply to all states and territories, and a single national access decision-making body empowered to harmonise networks across borders and reduce unique network proliferation.
Those changes, supported by a national system similar to that proposed by Austroads, will deliver the benefits this country needs to support road freight transport in the future.
Resources
Intergovernmental Agreement on Heavy Vehicle Regulatory Reform
