Detour ahead for heavy vehicle regulator

THE National Heavy Vehicle Regulator (NHVR) has shared recent progress and upcoming plans at this year’s Institute of Public Works Engineering Australasia (IPWEA) Australasian Fleet Conference in Brisbane. 

Since being established in 2013 to administer the Heavy Vehicle National Law (HVNL), the Regulator has made significant progress in easing the compliance burden for the road transport sector.

The regulator has taken over heavy vehicle on-road safety and compliance in South Australia, New South Wales, Australian Capital Territory, Tasmania and Victoria, and Queensland is next giving them control of the eastern seaboard. 

“We are now actually into transition number six. We completed the New South Wales transition last year, and we're working on Queensland and hopefully by the end of this year, early next year, we should have all of those state agencies within the remit of the regulator,” said NHVR chief executive Sal Petroccitto.

“We are working proactively with the Western Australian government, who will start to share some of our information and technology, which will give us that ability to actually see what's happening across borders as well.

“It will hopefully be a 10-year journey, which will then deliver to the industry a more consistent approach in the way we undertake our regulatory functions, and our enforcement functions. 

“It will be a truly borderless operation; we no longer see any boundaries.”

Last year alone the Regulator improved its Performance Based Standards (PBS) vehicle approval turnaround by 54 per cent, improved its permit times by 15 per cent, and its new in-house call centre achieved a 90 per cent first call resolution.

Talking at the IPWEA Fleet Conference, Mr Petroccitto explained the regulator’s move to becoming a fully digital organization, further streamlining operations. 

“In the various states that we operate we are moving to be a fully digital organisation and all activities undertaken by our officers are now fully digital,” he said.

“They are all linked with iPads that have the ability to see truck movements from various states across the country. We link that to a camera network and we link that to risk profiling of operators or entities, which allows us to undertake our functions more efficiently and effectively.”

The result is a data set of more than a million registered trucks, which the regulator uses to guide its enforcement focus.

“The intent is to keep good operators running and focus on those that need more encouragement to improve their performance or lift their game,” said Mr Petroccitto.

The NHVR is based in Brisbane, employing close to 800 people across Australia, with a growing legal team consisting of prosecutors and investigators. Despite its growing prosecution powers, Mr Petroccitto says the regular aims to stay out of court. 

“I have a team of around 40 prosecutors, I have a team of investigators, and so we take this side of the law really seriously. But we’re also taking a different approach to the way we undertake our I suppose our functions,” he said.

“We don't want to be in court and we don't necessarily see being in court as a successful outcome.

“We're looking at alternatives, whether we use enforceable undertakings, supervisory intervention orders, improvement notices, there's a broad range of tools that we use to ensure that we're actually informing and educating those who need to understand their obligations.

“We really do want to be a more modern risk based regulator and more proactive regulator in the way we interact and engage with the industry.”

The NHVR is also focused on road transport productivity, from permitting to higher productivity vehicle approvals, with around 50,000 users in their system and half a million permits issued so far. The aim, however, is to move to a gazetted approach with a single national road map.

“Ministers have agreed that access needs to be simplified in this country and there's a commitment to moving to a single national network map where everyone can go to, which will basically provide the certainty around it where a vehicle can or can't go, and with that, a commitment to remove 95 per cent of permits out of the systems,” said Mr Petroccitto.

The regulator’s advice for fleet operators, whether a utility provider or local government, is that if you have trucks - you’re a trucking company.

“We really don't see any distinction between a trucking company, a local government or anyone like that if you own a fleet, and you have the prospect of creating harm or doing harm to someone, you really have an obligation under the law,” he concluded.