The National Transport Commission (NTC) is calling on the transport industry to share their expertise on how Australia’s trucking community can benefit most from Performance-Based Standards (PBS).
In a paper released last week, the NTC discusses the PBS scheme, which aims to encourage more productive vehicle designs without sacrificing safety requirements.
According to CEO of the NTC Paul Retter, the NTC’s aim is to maximise access to PBS productivity benefits and reduce the administrative burden on everyone.
“To do this we need to first draw on the wealth of knowledge and experience that exists to set the prescribed requirements and test the viability of the options,” said Retter. “We need to hear from engineers, manufacturers, operators, road agencies and drivers so we can all get the most out of the scheme in the future.”
The NTC’s discussion paper examines if prescriptive designs for six and seven-axle truck and trailer combinations can deliver greater efficiencies, by allowing vehicles not currently PBS-certified but meet the PBS regulation requirements, to travel with the same mass limits as PBS approved vehicles.
Retter said the NTC’s preliminary research suggests that making PBS-compliant blueprints and specifications more easily accessible is the greatest opportunity to save industry time and money.
The NTC’s discussion paper can be downloaded from the NTC website: www.ntc.gov.au.