Managing Freight on Local Roads

1
Managing Freight on Local Roads

• Fiona Calvert
• Director Strategic Planning National Transport
  Commission

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What NTC Does

• Leads transport regulatory reform nationally
• to meet the needs of transport users the
  broader community
• for safe, efficient sustainable land transport
• "Develop, monitor, maintain uniform and
  nationally consistent regulatory and operational
  reforms..." (NTC Act 2003)

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Reason for NTC Process

• Responsibility for land transport lies with the
  States and Territories
• Results in breaks of gauge
• Limits potential for more far reaching reforms to
  be considered

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Australias Transport Dependency

• Large
• Sparsely populated
• Freight dependent

Source J McLean 1999
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The Future

• Focus on freight task rather then mode
• Increased use of rail
• Continuing dependence on road

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BTRE Forecasts - Intercity
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BTRE Forecasts - Intercity
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BTRE Forecasts - Cities
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Challenge Environmental Impact
10
Challenge Road Safety
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Twice the Freight Task Outcome Sought
A better picture of how the future freight task
will be managed
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The Problem
While protecting the health and safety of
transport system users and others
Constraints
Without consuming excessive resources
Without causing avoidable damage to the physical
environment
To provide access to the goods that people want
when they want them
While preserving residential amenity and
respecting other social values
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The big picture four levels of attack
EXAMPLES
LEVEL
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Future Directions

• Road
• Use spare capacity, not one-rule-for-all
• Compliance certainty and pricing are enablers
• Rail
• Harmonisation
• Intermodal
• Remove regulatory barriers

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Tools Being Developed by the NTC

• NTC developing a number of tools that could
  underpin efforts to make more effective use of
  infrastructure
• Intelligent Access Programme
• Performance-based standards
• More flexible heavy vehicle (incremental) pricing
  arrangements
• Compliance and enforcement

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Building Trust

• Many of the tools NTC has been developing are
  aimed at improving trust between regulators, the
  community and transport operators
• Greater assurance that operators will obey the
  rules
• Greater certainty that outcomes will be safer,
  cleaner and quieter

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Compliance and Enforcement Changes

• Chain of responsibility
• Risk based categorisation of offences
• Greater range of penalties and sanctions
• Greater powers of officers
• Streamlined procedures for gathering evidence

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Intelligent Access Programme

• Use of GPS tracking to accurately and
  continuously monitor compliance with access
  conditions
• Vehicle identification
• Location
• Speed
• Time of day
• Tampering
• Competing 3rd party service providers
• Exception reporting

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NTCs Objectives for Heavy Vehicle Pricing

• NTCs objective is to ensure that trucks and
  buses pay their way
• up to now based solely on road construction and
  maintenance costs
• Heavy vehicle charges are set to recover what has
  been spent on roads by all governments
• The charges are collected through a federal fuel
  charge and annual State/Territory registration
  charges

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Heavy Vehicle Road Expenditure and Charge Revenue
Shares (1998)
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Third Determination Cost Estimates
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Future Road Pricing Arrangements

• Incremental pricing to unlock access to
  under-utilised capacity in the road network
• revenue must flow to the road manager
• must remain a national system
• Individual user pricing for freight vehicles
  based on mass and distance
• Issues with inter-government revenue flows
  measuring use

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Potential for Regulatory Changes in Managing Road
Use
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Performance Based Standards Delivering Safer
Operations

• PBS vehicles required to demonstrate
• they can stay upright
• do not sway around excessively
• fit in the available space
• eg while driving along a straight road, changing
  lanes or turning at high speed

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Performance Based Standards Building Confidence

• How do we build confidence in specifying
  performance outcomes in place of what heavy
  vehicles should be like?
• Trial period
• Communication tools
• Planning matching vehicles, roads and environs
• Operating requirements
• Monitored
• Audited

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Improved Road Access Management

• Smart road access controls to improve outcomes in
  specific locations
• agreed safety, environmental efficiency
  performance targets
• IAP to monitor access
• possibly varied by time of day
• Must be supported by compliance tools pricing