An Integrated Approach to the Regulation of Heavy Vehicles.

The aim of this paper is to propose a regulatory approach to enable the effective utilisation of heavy vehicles on road systems. Effective utilisation of these vehicles enables the achievement of economic competitiveness through efficient road transport whilst maintaining acceptable safety, environmental and asset standards. Throughout the world there is a rapid expansion in freight, particularly road freight. This is leading to increasingconflict between heavy and light vehicles in urban areas and some congested inter-urban links. Community concern over noise, safety, environmental and amenity impacts of heavy vehicles is growing in the developed world and in many parts of the developing world. This points to a need for innovative and imaginative approaches to vehicle design, regulation and access tobest meet freight needs whilst addressing community concerns. Using Australia as a case study, this paper will consider issues related to the regulation of heavy vehicles, including: freight needs; safety requirements; compliance and enforcement approaches that can be utilised to demonstrate tothe community that these vehicles will comply with safety and environmental standards; and the value of performance based standards in preference to prescriptive standards, to allow vehicle designers and operators to innovate within defined safety standards. For the covering abstract see ITRD E139491.