Last week, HVIA staff received a sneak peek at what Freight Victoria has under the Christmas tree for the heavy vehicle industry – and among the biggest gifts will be the Heavy Vehicle Structural Assessment Permit System (HVSAPS) set to be unwrapped early in the new year.
HVSAPS will automate up to 85 per cent of bridge assessments, significantly reducing assessment and response times, eliminating structural assessment fees for industry, and facilitating easier access pathways for high productivity B-doubles, A-doubles, and many other Performance Based Standards (PBS) vehicles.
The gift’s origins were the result of HVIA’s advocacy work in the first quarter of 2025, which led to the Victorian Government’s decision to finally remove all fees for bridge/structures assessments conducted for heavy vehicle access applications. Freight Victoria created HVSAPS to facilitate that decision.
In the sneak peak, Freight Victoria advised HVIA that:
> HVSAPS will ‘go live’ early in the new year (date to be shortly determined);
> It will be available via the ‘NHVR Go’ portal;
> It can be used to conduct bridge assessments on any vehicle, at any stage – either to support an in-principle application, or once a Design Approval (DA) or Vehicle Approval (VA) has been obtained;
> The system’s calculations will normally be completed within a matter of hours, and users will receive a notification once the results are ready;
> The results will be able to be viewed online, or downloaded as a PDF, and will be in the form of a list of bridges/structures on the submitted route that are limited to a mass lower than the applied gross combination mass;
> If the results are positive (i.e. no problematic structures identified), users can attach the PDF of the results with their permit applications;
> If problematic structures are identified, users have a number of options: the route can be revised to avoid them; the vehicle’s dimensions can be adjusted to obtain a favourable result; or the vehicle’s mass can be downgraded;
> There are no limits on the number of assessments that can submitted, nor on the number of revisions that can be made.
Freight Victoria advises that the system has been tested with real-world cases from industry applicants, and does not anticipate that the system will encounter any substantial problems on launch. Nonetheless, it calls for patience if difficulties are encountered.
While the system is reasonably straightforward to use, as it is a new system that industry has not previously worked with, Freight Victoria has offered to run a webinar for HVIA members in the new year.
HVIA will publish details on that webinar in future Talk the Torque articles, and will also email a notification directly to its PBS and vehicle modification working groups.