Industry Issues

See It, Mention It and Record It

Next year, small fleets will have to ‘see it, mention it and record it’ if they want to avoid being the scapegoat in Chain of Responsibility (CoR) cases. They need to be prepared and well informed. Diesel News finds out what they need to know, in our Owner Driver’s Guide to CoR.
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View of the Future

Brendan Richards outlined his view of the future at the Trucking Australia conference in Darwin. For generations, the trucking industry has managed and embraced change, but what is catching us all by surprise is the increasing pace of that change. “Globalisation is a significant issue in the way it reacts with the economy. By 2050, it’s expected China will be the world’s largest economy. By 2025, the Asia-Pacific region will make up something like 50 per cent of economic activity globally. There’s a huge shift in economic power coming towards the Asian region.
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Top Apprentice, Telematics, Payment Times and SA Access

This week Diesel News is featuring stories about a Top Apprentice, Telematics, Payment Times and SA Access. A survey into the trucking industry’s use of telematics shows 94 per cent of operators surveyed plan to invest heavily in hardware and technologies for their business in the next year. The figures come from the 2017 Telematics Benchmark Report: Australian Transport Edition survey published by Teletrac Navman.
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Ravaglioli Commercial Vehicle Wireless Mobile Column Lifts

Turntables Leading the Way to Reform

A pilot fitting regime may see turntables leading the way to reform and could become the basis for a new national modifications scheme. Modification code of practice Vehicle Standards Bulletin 6, or VSB6, has been undergoing a comprehensive review to bring it in line with current methodology and technology.
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Greetings From the Trucking Twitterverse

Operation Wake Up

In September, the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator (NHVR) was concentrating on fatigue with Operation Wake-Up. It included officers from Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, the Australian Capital Territory and even Western Australia, plus three police agencies, working with NHVR to validate the National Camera Network and the National Information System. For the first time, officers could see the movement of trucks across the country.
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Who Does What?

People outside or new to the trucking industry often ask why there are so many industry associations and who does what. The answer can often be quite complex and the history of trucking’s relationship with governments, both state and federal, needs to illustrate where they all came from.
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Road and Container Charging Plus Portal and Road Trains

This week we are talking about Road and Container Charging Plus Portal and Road Trains in Diesel News. A new road-charging regime will be found for the trucking industry, after a decision by the Transport and Infrastructure Council (TIC) of state and federal transport ministers. The plan is to thoroughly examine the costs and benefits of implementation of independent price regulation and a forward looking cost base, slated to come in 2018–19. The council agreed to freeze heavy vehicle charges at 2017–18 levels for a further two years, to a mixed reaction from industry associations.
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Everything Has To Do With Scale

In the Northern Territory everything has to do with scale – it represents 18 per cent of Australia’s land area but is home to just one per cent of the country’s population. Diesel News talked with an operator tasked with distributing fuel across the Territory. Sitting in a modest industrial unit in Katherine in the Northern Territory, and talking to the owner of the operation, John Fraser, it’s easy to think of the operation run by the genial, relaxed man in battered shorts and a shirt, with a dusty baseball cap, as a small concern. However, start talking about the task the company handles, plus the area covered and customers serviced, and you soon realise this is a big operation in a big country, using big trucks. Read More