This week the trucking industry is thinking about customer service, hay runs and HML changes, and it’s all in Diesel News.
Customer Service
Following the release of a research report on measuring infrastructure asset performance and customer satisfaction from the Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics (BITRE), the Australian Trucking Association (ATA) is calling for the improvement of the customer service experience for road users. It reckons customer service needs to be a central focus for governments’ management of the road network.
“This timely report on developing an infrastructure and customer satisfaction framework identifies service quality attributes that should be measured to improve the customer service of infrastructure,” said Geoff Crouch , ATA Chair. “Additional economic gains from infrastructure relies on its efficient management, operation and use. The report identifies the importance of cost, access, safety, reliability, timeliness, user amenity and information for how customers interact with infrastructure, including roads.
“Australia is experiencing ever-increasing, unsustainable, and unfair toll increases on heavy vehicles but without any measurement of this funding better services to the users paying these costs.”
Hay Run on again
The Burrumbuttock Hay Runners founder Brendan Farrell has said he expects to lead up to 500 semi trailer loads of hay to drought-stricken Queensland to coincide with Australia Day next year. The hay runners have completed 11 successful hay runs since 2014 and are hoping to continue helping our farmers in drought-affected areas. This year’s hay run finished at Muttaburra, with 320 loads of donated hay.
HML Changes
The Australian Livestock and Rural Transporters Association (ALRTA) says it has lodged a submission in response to the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator (NHVR) Issues Paper on the 2017 Drafting of the National Higher Mass Limits (HML) Declaration. The ALRTA said it has supported several of the proposals to harmonise HML rules across Heavy Vehicle National Law (HVNL) jurisdictions including implementing HML limits by axle group rather than heavy vehicle combination types; requiring National Heavy Vehicle Accreditation Scheme (NHVAS) Mass Management accreditation for tri-axle groups; requiring road friendly suspension (RFS); allowing 22.5 tonnes for a triaxle group; and not requiring the HML declaration to be carried by the driver in either physical or electronic format.
The ALRTA has ‘in principle’ supported using a combination of vehicle type and HML overlays to determine appropriate vehicle routes as is currently done in Queensland. However, it has stressed that the Queensland IT platform that displays a series of disjointed PDF maps of differing scales is the worst in Australia. As far as possible, the ALRTA reckons the NHVR should work towards ensuring that operators can zoom in and out of a national map and view the entire route at once.