Performance
Based Standards (PBS)

The QTLC supports the NTC’s view of Performance Based Standards (PBS) which offers the potential for heavy vehicle operators to achieve higher productivity and safety through innovative vehicle design. These gains are typically not available under conventional ‘one size fits all’ prescriptive mass and dimension rules or the state-based permit system therefore more needs to be done to assist state regulators, local government and the community to embrace the positive safety benefits to all road users.

PBS brings a fresh alternative approach to heavy vehicle regulation. It focuses on how well the vehicle behaves on the road, rather than how big and heavy it is (e.g. length and mass), through a set of safety, road wear and bridge loading standards.

PBS governs what a vehicle can do, not what it should look like. PBS sets minimum vehicle ‘performance’ standards to ensure trucks are stable on the road and can turn and stop safely. The NTC has tagged them SMART trucks – because they work smarter.

What are the benefits of PBS?

The National Transport Commission’s (NTC) Twice the Task report found that the land transport task will almost double between 2000 and 2020. ‘Doing nothing’ will result in another 50,000 trucks on Australian roads, with one in four vehicles in our cities carrying freight.

SMART trucks carry more freight and are safer on the road than the ‘off-the-shelf’ one-size-fits-all vehicles they replace. The end result is fewer trucks on the road for the same freight task, improved road safety, less transport emissions and a more competitive domestic economy.

Safer and more productive SMART heavy vehicles can reduce road trauma in Australian cities.

In communities where the exposure to heavy vehicles is high, truck size, noise, emissions, speed and driver behaviour are sensitive issues.

Performance Based Standards (PBS) presents an opportunity to constrain the adverse impacts of road freight growth in urban areas by requiring:

• safer vehicle designs;
• best practice noise and emissions performance (replacing the ‘old bangers’); and
• trucks stick to approved routes (e.g. using vehicle tracking), where there is a compliance risk.