With bushfires half the size of Tasmania have been burning across the NT since mid-September, leading to regular closure of the major freight routes, the Western Roads Federation and the NT Road Transport Association are calling for action.
These fires are seen as an early warning of what is forecast to be a severe bushfire season and the WRF and NTRTA are calling for a national interstate freight route alert system.
To avoid yet another year of chaotic interstate freight route disruptions, lessons learnt, during the 2020 Eyre highway fires and again being learnt after the Barkly Highway fires, is that early advice has to be given to interstate trucking operators that a road is closed due to an fire/flood etc incident.
Currently all systems are state based, leading to some interstate drivers arriving at or near incident sites uninformed. A national system enabling earlier incident advice to interstate drivers may enable them to consider alternative plans.
Having a single site, may also address the issue of some jurisdictions posting to notifications on different platforms not all of which are read by interstate drivers.
According to the WRF and NTRTA, the solution is relatively at hand, as most jurisdictions have some sort of travel alert, such as WA’s Main Roads Travel Map. https://travelmap.mainroads.wa.gov.au/Home/Map
Potentially these could be integrated into one national alert system, with automated texts for subscribing interstate companies and drivers.
Early advice and notification will provide companies and drivers with the opportunity to reconsider their plans.
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