4.1.3 Productivity and efficiency
In this lesson:
Managing the safety and impact of heavy vehicles needs to be balanced against the positive economic benefits that heavy vehicles bring to the community.
Heavy Vehicle National Law (HVNL) enables heavy vehicle designs which produce productivity and efficiency benefits while minimising negative impacts.
The growth of the use of innovative designs like PBS vehicles has allowed significant growth in the freight task while minimising negative impacts on safety and road infrastructure.
Benefits of PBS
Evaluation of the impact of replacing conventional freight vehicles with PBS vehicles shows that:
- PBS vehicles are safer than comparable conventional vehicles. The major crash involvement rate of PBS vehicles is 46 per cent lower per kilometre travelled than comparable freight vehicles.
- PBS vehicles are more productive than comparable conventional vehicles. Productivity improvements range from 15% for transport of cars and groceries to over 30% for transport of general freight and containers.
- Use of PBS vehicles reduced road maintenance requirements by about $65 million in 2016.
• Use of PBS vehicles in 2014-16 reduced the kilometres travelled to deliver Australia’s road freight task by 440 million km. - In 2016, use of PBS vehicles reduced the need for fuel to deliver Australia’s road freight task by 94 million litres, and resultant CO2 emissions by 250,000 tonnes.
Source: NTC PBS Marketplace Report
Report Issue
