Melbourne engineer Robert Smedley has warned that red tape and a lack of education about the benefits of Performance Based Standards (PBS) vehicles are stifling industry productivity and hurting regional communities.
The Managing Director of Smedley’s Engineers, whose client list includes several big names along the eastern seaboard, cited several examples of local councils he said are “getting in the way” of operators wanting to run more efficient, safer equipment.
One of the most glaring recent examples, Smedley said, is the decision by the Bundaberg Regional Council in Queensland to impose an additional route assessment charge of $400 for a new application, $250 for a renewal and $900 for an urgent assessment.
Smedley said he chose to speak out because that decision could have far-reaching consequences and he hopes authorities will step in to educate road managers on the benefits of PBS vehicles before other regions follow suit.
“There is nowhere near enough education from the NHVR and state road managers getting down to the local government level,” Smedley said.
“There’s a disconnect in knowledge and when you end up having the decision-maker at the local council turnover, change hands or retire, the new guys who come along are not trained, not skilled enough to be making these decisions and they’re not seeking out training from the NHVR and just going about doing it their own way.”
While Section 159 of the Heavy Vehicle National Law allows road managers to charge for assessments, industry experts warn that applying these fees risks damaging the very industries councils rely on – and neighbouring regions that depend on Bundaberg as a freight gateway.
The council spokesperson told Big Rigs that the introduction of the fees has allowed it to “reassign resources” and improve efficiency in undertaking freight assessments for industry.
“These assessments are the most common request type for council’s infrastructure team and account for just over 20 per cent of all road corridor requests received in the 2024/25 financial year,” the spokesperson said.
“The introduction of nominal fees assists council to recover costs based on the time spent assessing the requests without relying on ratepayer funds to undertake NHVR assessments.”
The spokesperson added that council is committed to supporting industry while “ensuring a fair and sustainable process”.
But Smedley said the council is missing the bigger picture.
“The introduction of these fees will hit operators hard and, by extension, impact critical industries like agriculture, forestry, fishing, manufacturing, and construction,” Smedley said.
Neighbouring regions also depend on operators having access through Bundaberg, meaning additional fees will not only raise costs locally but also flow on to communities further afield.
“If they are making it more expensive for livestock, grain, wheat, fruit, veggies, or whatever to get out of that community to the markets, all they are doing is damaging the farmers.”
Smedley said PBS vehicles are also independently proven to improve safety outcomes, reduce pavement wear, and deliver significant environmental benefits through lower fuel use and reduced emissions.
“Local governments should be working with operators to keep freight moving, not putting up financial roadblocks that slow entire communities.
“I’ve got operators that have probably got half a dozen different combination types they want to run in and out of that council [Bundaberg], so you could be looking at thousands of dollars.”
By contrast, Smedley said other local governments have demonstrated strong support for the freight industry.
Moree Plains Shire Council (MPSC), for example, has a long history of investing in freight infrastructure and engaging with industry stakeholders through forums that include the Farmers Federation, NHVR, and police.
South Burnett Regional Council has also adopted a more collaborative approach, focusing on operator needs rather than imposing additional barriers, said Smedley.
An NHVR spokesperson said the regulator has recently discussed this topic of route assessments with the Bundaberg Council, with both the NHVR and government committed to ensuring the communication of these fees to operators is clear and meets HVNL requirements.
Through the Strategic Local Government Asset Assessment Project, NHVR is assisting councils in participating jurisdictions to collect key bridge and culvert data to feed into the Australian Government’s National Automated Access System, the spokesperson added.
“Through this same program, the NHVR has assisted councils in the assessment of more than 1000 bridges and culverts for common vehicles accessing Australian roads.
“The NHVR has developed and published four training courses for local authority road managers to help them understand how heavy vehicles interact with bridges and culverts and allow them to make more-informed access decisions for bridges and culverts.
The spokesperson also said the NHVR’s free online productivity tools, available through NHVR Go, are designed to empower road managers with more informed and data-driven insights that support safe, sustainable, and efficient decisions regarding heavy vehicle access.
“For example, over the past three years, the Historic Access Reporting Tool (HART) has identified more than a 90 per cent consent approval rate in Bundaberg from over 300 PBS permit cases, with an average permit turnaround time of approximately 15 days, demonstrating road managers’ support for PBS vehicles when suitable to the network.”
F/n shiny asses trying to justify their existence. Never done a real day’s work in their lives.
PBS is inherently complicated in that it allows a great range of flexibility that challenges the prescriptive way of thinking about heavy vehicle access. It introduces concepts that require detailed explanation and PBS assessors in carrying out their duties should also take steps to help councils noting that assesors are ones playing around with heavy vehicle design concepts.