The Improving HPV Access through Potential Charging Regimes is, as its title states, a comparative research of potential charging regimes. The Project Brief mandated analysis of ‘real world’ case studies to gain supply and demand insights from an assessment of increasing High Productivity Vehicle Use (HPV) on them. The case studies were selected from eight options, being: • Regional/Remote: Extended Queensland Inland Freight Route (EQIFR) Townsville Brisbane; • Interstate: Roma to Moree (Carnarvon Highway) Interstate Freight Route (IFR); and • Urban and near urban: Performance Based Standard (PBS) Level 2B A Doubles, from Port of Brisbane to Toowoomba West. The regional and remote case study was extended to encompass Townsville and Brisbane in line with the Transport Infrastructure Council inland freight routes approval in November 2014. The three case studies cover different areas (urban and near urban, regional and remote); HPV types (PBS2B A Doubles, PBS3A Type 1 Road Trains (T1RTs) and Triple Road Trains, and PBS4A Type 2 Road Trains (T2RTs) and Quad Road Trains); road ownership (two States and a private road, with the Commonwealth as a major funder); and mass limits (either General Mass Limit (GML) or Higher Mass Limit (HML) routes). Due to their different situations and characteristics, the three case studies encompass likely, but not all, characteristics where increasing HPV access may be considered by jurisdictions. Road planning for general access roads has been documented and nationally approved for 8 years, and is currently undergoing refinement. High productivity vehicle (HPV) planning is a key part of road design for an increasing number of State and Local Government roads. The road infrastructure, HPV planning process is not as mature as outlined in Chapter 2. In particular, processes may not discriminate adequately between the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator (NHVR) Guideline road state requirements for current and potential HPV class requirements; see Chapters 3 and 4. Chapter 4 also details the Cost Benefit Analysis (CBA) for increasing HPV access to the PBS4B level for the EQIFR. It was not positive, partly for the reason described in the last paragraph. The CBA included an optimistic freight route diversion from the Townsville to Brisbane coastal (Bruce Highway) route to the inland freight route. CBA assessment of HPVs matters were discussed. While there was insufficient information to economically assess the Interstate Freight Route it would have performed worse than the EQIFR. However, the PBS2B case study would have generated benefits many times in excess of its modest costs. Chapter 5 describes a new technique for estimating commodities and supply chain matters using visual heavy vehicle data. It found that only 40 percent of all the heavy vehicles travelling between Townsville and Brisbane may divert to an inland freight route, due to supply chain constraints. This technique should be further researched but in the interim, it would be remiss of jurisdictions not to consider this approach in planning freight diversions to inland freight routes. (Author/publisher)
Samenvatting