The National Heavy Vehicle Regulator has been active in New South Wales for over two years now, so PowerTorque spent the day at the Mount White Checking Station, on the road with the NHVR, to see how the transition has changed the interface between the trucking community and its regulator.
It was back in August 2022 that we saw the transition of key regulatory functions from Transport for NSW to the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator (NHVR). Australia’s biggest state, in trucking terms, was now being regulated by the same organisation which has that responsibility in South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria, and now, in Queensland.
The rollout of NHVR responsibility faced its biggest task in integrating the massive Transport for NSW agency into its organisation. NSW is a big pill to swallow, but swallow it, it has, without any crises appearing over that first two years. The process in the lead up to the integration was a long and convoluted one, but the preparatory work clearly eased the process.
The Mount White Safety Stations, both north and south bound on the Pacific Highway, about 50km north of Sydney, are always busy, as trucks have to pull off the highway and pass over the weigh-in-motion (WIM) system.
If the axle masses detected are suspect, the traffic light system requests them to pull onto the weighbridge. If nothing comes up, the trucks are directed back out onto the highway.
These locations are the main interface between those working on the road, in the trucking industry and the regulators tasked with ensuring they are doing the right thing.
These locations have been a source of friction between drivers and regulators, but the hope is that the takeover of these location by the NHVR, who have proved in other states to be able to reduce the tension between the trucking population and the regulators, it will have the same effect here.
Having, myself, experienced the interface as a driver, being called in and booked for an over mass axle, it was interesting and a little daunting to experience the scenario from the other side of the glass. Most drivers approach the site with a little trepidation and simply being called into the site may create delays.
The station is normally manned on both sides of the highway, with two men on each side. The team spend their time focusing on the weighbridge and the screening lane in the lead up to the point where the light signals tell the driver to return to the highway or drive onto the weighbridge. They are analysing the traffic as it’s coming through, and dealing with the people coming onto the bridge.
Some of the staff are also involved in mobile patrolling as well, but not so much on the freeway. This team’s remit covers the Central Coast region. One or two mobile crews go out on the road every week for a couple of days. They rotate around, the team also have an inspection pit at West Gosford through which they will rotate a week at a time.
The checking station runs 24 hours a day and on an average day the weighbridge will see 30 or more vehicle.
“That may not seem a lot, but when you do an inspection on one of these trucks and then you’ve got to go through things with the driver and his stuff, then you got to get around the truck, and, finally, you go and test this and that,” says one of the team.
“It can be half an hour on one truck. It can also take longer. We might be targeting brakes as well, so we’ve got a brake testing machine and we could do, what we call, level two inspection which is a much more detailed inspection.”
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