Further delays for the start of the NHVR

IT problems have forced the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator (NHVR) to delay the official start date from 1 September to early October.

According to NHVR CEO Richard Hancock, problems discovered when testing the newly developed computer programs and processes – custom-designed to handle the national permitting system on a single national web portal – have thrown up a number of issues. As a result, the NHVR has delayed its commencement and now hopes to begin operations on 1 October.

The latest delay follows a series of announcements which have seen the official start date being pushed back from the original opening date of 1 January 2013 as the complexity of the project caused a series of delays.

“We are now looking at 1 October and we are still doing some work just to confirm a date. Talking to the industry, my sense is that people want the system to be stable when it goes live,” Richard Hancock explained in a teleconference.

The results from the first integration testing have prompted Hancock and the NHVR board to decide they would be taking “too much risk” by having the system go live on 1 September.

“The testing has identified some defects and they are present in various parts of the system which are not adequately talking to each other. We have got to resolve these defects before we can turn it on and go live,” Hancock said.

“I don’t want the NHVR or the industry to be in a situation where we have to cope with a system which is not working as well as we want it to do in a live environment.”

Reportedly, the problem is with the access management system which is designed to handle all permit applications from throughout Australia.

Testing started in early August and uncovered a range of issues that couldn’t be fixed within the deadline.

As a result, the NHVR now hopes to have the issues resolved in September, and only once this is done it will confirm the next start date.