Following the NHVR’s Queensland Road Manager Forum held last week, the regulator discussed some of the changes being made to its online portal relating to managing routes, permits and road assets.
The forum was held at the NHVR Brisbane office and online, with 20 local road managers from around South East Queensland attending in person, and an additional 60 road managers attending online.
According to the NHVR, the forum provided an opportunity to provide updates and discuss the benefits of key work programs, such as the Strategic Local Government Asset Assessment Project (SLGGAP), the changes coming to the NHVR Portal and the Road Management and Network Builder tools.
NHVR chief engineer, Les Bruzsa, also provided an overview of key things to consider when undertaking assessments of Performance Based Standards (PBS) vehicles. A demonstration of the new road manager hub, road manager training and an update on the access program of work including pre-approvals and renewals was provided.
As part of the forum, a demonstration of the new NHVR national network map was provided, including the new road manager self-service tools that will allow road managers to actively maintain and update heavy vehicle networks within their local government area.
In the next few weeks, the NHVR will start publishing the South Australia, Victoria and Australian Capital Territory maps in the portal. The maps for New South Wales and Queensland are planned to be made available by the end of the year.
The NHVR says it has now completed the tooling that allows road managers to accurately claim or transfer road ownership of roads through the portal.
Training sessions with state, territory, local government and third parties has been completed in Vic, SA and into Qld, with over 5000 ownership changes already made, covering more than 20,000 road segments.
The Network Management Tool in the portal is now in use by the Victorian Department of Transport and will continue to be rolled out to state and territory road agencies as maps are transitioned into the portal.
From September 2023, a pilot will be launched with local government to begin rolling out the Network Management Tools including management of both gazetted and pre-approved network maps.
At the forum, road managers heard from the project manager of the Strategic Local Government Asset Assessment Project (SLGAAP).
Through the SLGAAP, engineers are funded to undertake route capability assessments and asset assessments for local governments across Australia.
Round 2 of SLGAAP is underway and includes engineering assessments for 125 critical assets across 33 councils. Once completed, the total number of assessments completed under SLGAAP will be close to 600 assessments across 88 local council areas.
As part of the project, the SLGAAP team has worked with councils to identify approximately 2000 local government priority heavy vehicle routes for engineering asset assessments. These routes were selected based on their critical role in supporting the movement of goods across communities.