The Heavy Vehicle National Law (HVNL) review is set to deliver its first major productivity improvement in the new year, as work quietly progresses behind the scenes on the necessary policy and regulatory frameworks needed to support it.
As has been presented in various HVIA Member Forums throughout 2024 and 2025, those productivity improvements are centred on changes to the Mass, Dimensions and Loading (MDL) regulations to allow trucks and trailers to be slightly heavier, taller and longer.
Specifically, new General Mass Limits (GML) for heavy vehicles will be increased to match the current Concession Mass Limits (CML). In broad terms, that change could deliver up to a five per cent increase in productivity for current GML operations.
Ministers have also agreed to increase the general access height limit from 4.3 metres to 4.6 metres, and the general access vehicle length limit from 19 metres to 20 metres, pending confirmation of further technical analysis and appropriate controls. That change will also improve productivity for volume-limited operations and reduce the need for some permits.
The National Transport Commission (NTC) is currently finalising the MDL policy work package and expects to release a public exposure draft of the proposed MDL regulations later this year.
Further down the track, the NTC expects to provide the MDL changes to ministers for consideration before the end of 2025, so that the regulations can be made in February 2026 and take effect with the rest of the HVNL changes in mid-2026.
HVIA will continue to keep members updated on these changes throughout the remainder of 2025. Of specific interest are the ‘appropriate controls’ that may be imposed on operations as part of the productivity improvements, which may only become apparent as the states implement the Queensland model regulations into their own frameworks.