Truck and dog notice forum success

The Class 3 Truck and Dog Notice created a stir on its release but has gone on to be the catalyst for great industry-regulator collaboration.

Yesterday HVIA and the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator (NHVR) co-hosted an online forum aimed at clarifying some of the issues surrounding the Class 3 Truck and Dog Notice, released in September.

HVIA’s National Manager Policy and Government Relations, Greg Forbes said the online event was a great example of how industry can work with Government agencies to improve systems and outcomes.

“This Notice was very important because it represents the first attempt by the NHVR to normalise PBS designs and take them outside the constraints of the PBS system,” Mr Forbes said.

“The NHVR has indicated that it intends to use a similar approach to gazetting notices for other common PBS combinations.

“However, when this notice was first released HVIA was contacted by a number of members seeking assistance to understand its full implications.

“We saw an opportunity to work with the team from the NHVR to clarify the content of the notice and hopefully to fine-tune the NHVR’s approach.

“As a result, we can now look to not only getting the best out of this notice, but also others the NHVR may introduce in the future.

“We were delighted with the NHVR’s response to our request to hold a forum on this topic.

“I collated some of the feedback we had received from members into an agenda and NHVR team made sure they resourced the forum well.

“Our members appreciated having the relevant subject experts on hand to answer their questions.” 

The forum was well attended with more than thirty industry participants participating in active discussion.

Key outcomes from the forum include clarification on vehicle approvals and access arrangements under the new notice and the NHVR’s plans to enforce the notice.

“Most importantly, we were able to discuss the resource materials the NHVR has provided in relation to Mass and Dimension limits,” Mr Forbes added.

“Industry had found the calculations related to using the bridge formulae to establish mass and dimension constraints complicated.

“We were able to identify ways in which a spreadsheet provided by the regulator could be improved to make the calculations easier to understand.”

HVIA and the NHVR have agreed to undertake more work on the guidance material out-of-session. Mr Forbes said HVIA will keep members informed on progress.