Innholdsfortegnelse for Issue 356 i Australasian Transport News (ATN)

Shipping has thrown the gauntlet down to long-haul road and rail with a development marrying international and coastal services. Once operating, the deal between Great Southern Shipping Australia (GSS) and the Rizhao Port Group of China aims to boost the Australian-flagged ship fleet, through the Australian International Shipping Register (AISR), with the Sino-Australian partnership planning to invest in five container ships. They would be the AISR’s first ever ships since it was formed by the previous federal government, an Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) spokesperson confirms. Their arrival will mark a reversal of a longterm decline in the Australian merchant fleet, which in the past two years alone has slipped by a third from 21 ocean-going vessels to just 14. The new shipping line has plans to double its fleet…

CASE ONE – The fruit grower and the parcel backhauls A large national carrier suspended its forward and return leg contract arrangement for taking parcels from Adelaide to a major regional South Australian orchard area. The owner-driver return trip, evening dispatch ex-Adelaide and morning return trip from the regional town to Adelaide was discontinued in favour of loading a fruit truck with a backhaul of parcels after it had done its fruit delivery to the Gouger Street markets. The truck would have otherwise gone back nearly empty. The impact of this arrangement lowered the road transport cost of servicing this regional town by a factor of six! CASE TWO – Farmer efficiencies in livestock haulage It is not uncommon that livestock breeders will have the capacity to take a proportion…

Late in 2011, an invitation arrived to travel to Port Augusta to drive a couple of Macks up a stretch of the Stuart Highway. One was a Super-Liner pulling road train doubles, the other a Titan towing triples. It took a little while to soak into the brain box, but it was soon clear that this was no ordinary test drive, and definitely a very big deal for Mack. The good folk from the kennel were, in fact, providing a first crack at their latest big bangers powered by the newly available 16-litre MP10 engine. As Mack was quick to mention, it now had the world’s most powerful conventional production truck and, as sales stats would soon enough confirm, this event would mark the creation of an entirely new chapter…

As we all know, garbage trucks are often out and about at the same time as children heading to school in the morning. So who better to help launch a child pedestrian safety campaign than a waste management company? Toxfree is also a major customer of Volvo Trucks, so the national operator was the ideal partner to help launch the Australian version of Volvo’s global effort. Trucking companies and their drivers everywhere are asked to become involved in the ‘Stop, Look, Wave’ campaign targeted at young schoolkids. Volvo says a staggering 260,000 children are expected to be killed on the world’s roads this year, with 10 million injured. Volvo Group Australia points to an expected boom in the number of trucks on the road in this country, with more than…

Amanda O’Brien has had her fair share of challenges since taking over the privately-run business established in 1988. Having spent the first 18 months on turning business around, the global company continues to grow, servicing the transport, logistics and warehousing sector. Perhaps the biggest challenge for O’Brien has been breaking down unconscious biases, proving to the male-dominated industry that women can also do the job, if not better. The company was under liquidation when O’Brien stepped in, but she had no doubt in her ability to turn it around, having worked for big corporate companies for 20 years in project management and statistical analysis. “It was becoming non-profitable, the challenges with turning the business around as well as getting it back on track were huge,” O’Brien says. “It was very…

Vying for cutest truck at the recent International Truck Trailer and Equipment Show (ITTES) in Melbourne were these two little beauties at the “Show ’n ’Shine” section. The baby tray-top is a 1956 International ASC 160, and the baby Pantech is a Ford C 600 with a V8 diesel donk – also circa 1950s. At the other end of the wheelbase scale were these two great old chariots from a couple of decades back, of the Mack and Kenworth variety. The two shiny rigs with enormous bonnets looked so good that these show-goers took selfies in front of them. We don’t know if they also took selfies in front of the numerous cab-over garbage trucks on display elsewhere. Of course, the cute end also featured the best hood ornaments, with…

VIDEO: HIGHWAY 31 – A JOURNEY DOWN THE OLD HUME After weeks of comparing the White and Western Star prime movers, it is time for technical experts Matt Wood and Steve Brooks to hit the Old Hume Highway to answer the age-old question: Is trucking what it used to be? VIDEO: HUMPHRIES EXPLAINS ISUZU’S UPDATED F-SERIES Isuzu Australia Chief engineer Simon Humphries gives his thoughts on the new F-series, the new four-cylinder 4HK1 and six-cylinder 6HK1 engines, the company’s plans in Australia, and the changing global truck sales market. VIDEO: CLEARY BROS Cleary Bros’ Port Kembla site highlights the company’s mechanical heritage and demonstrates the skill and pride of the tradespeople who are such an intrinsic and crucial part of the Cleary business. There’s nothing quite like a labour of…

Montague Transport director Tim Montague was frustrated and concerned when, in April, he sought to tackle the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal (RSRT) at its Easter hearings. The full bench was sitting to cross-examine those industry players whose submissions seeking a delay on the Contractor Driver Minimum Payments Road Safety Remuneration Order 2016’s (RSRO) start date were deemed in need of deeper questioning. “It is Tim Montague in Perth here – there has been no witnesses called from Perth,” he said. “There has been no input, as far as I am aware, from anyone in Western Australia on the whole of the RSRT. “How can you pass judgment and make laws affecting us?” Something similar regarding the behaviour of those beyond the bench and the bar, related to the work, practices…

Let’s face it, anyone in the market for a European cab-over is these days spoilt for choice. Without putting too fine a point on it, it’s a field full of fine contenders, each with their own way of wooing the attention of truck buyers who in this country are about as merciful as a malevolent magistrate. Once burnt, the scars don’t fade for a long, long time. So, the thing is, if a certain make and model fails to fire in the estimations of owners and drivers, or suffers a run of mechanical maladies that corrode confidence and belittle the brand, then remoulding that truck’s reputation is about as easy as pulling teeth with tweezers. More to the point, truck buyers don’t have to look too far at all to…

“The new FH is the best truck we’ve ever produced” It’s hard to know whether it’s contentment or confidence. Maybe a mix of both. Whatever; it’s easy to form the impression that Peter Voorhoeve’s head is in a particularly good space these days. Sure, I don’t work for him and don’t know the attitudes and complexities that drive his daily demeanour. He is, after all, a corporate businessman, and there’s little doubt that beyond the quick smile and likeable character lurks an entirely pragmatic and fiercely focused individual. Still, at a recent meeting in Sydney, the Volvo Group Australia (VGA) president and chief executive officer certainly seemed satisfied with life in general and business in particular. In fact, the only disappointment even partially evident during an hour-long discussion was the…

Bigger doesn’t always mean better, but it can sometimes have its advantages. I’m at the Melbourne branch of a big player – Crown – to have a look at a small forklift. General manager – sales Jeff Marshall and communications manager Nigel Tunnell-Jones join me in gazing across the swath of forklifts sitting patiently in neat rows, awaiting their call to action. Marshall sweeps his arm metaphorically across the country and makes a good point. “We’ve got 387 service vans in Australia, all with a GPS tracker,” Marshall says. “That means if one develops a fault, we can send the closest service technician and fix the problem in very quick time.” It’s an important job. Crown has a rental fleet of 18,000 to monitor, and has just introduced a new…

The Australian Trucking Association has hailed new figures suggesting a marked decline in fatal truck crashes in Australia between 1982 and 2015. The figures, which were compiled by the Centre for Automotive Safety Research (CASR) at the University of Adelaide using government statistics, show that the rate of fatal articulated truck crashes fell by 80 per cent during the period. Articulated trucks include semitrailers and B-double combinations, the report suggests. “Safety is always the trucking industry’s first priority,” ATA CEO Christopher Melham says. “These figures show the dramatic improvement we have achieved, with the fatal crash rate for articulated trucks falling by 80 per cent between 1982 and 2015. “During this time, the number of articulated trucks on Australian roads doubled. “Even as truck and car numbers have grown, the…

The National Transport Commission (NTC) has released the heavy vehicle driver fatigue data final report that sets a national framework to collect and analyse fatigue data to “better inform future fatigue policy”. NTC chief executive Paul Retter says the design of the framework and the priority fatigue issues in the report incorporate stakeholder feedback to develop a heavy vehicle fatigue data framework discussion paper released in August 2015. “We know that fatigue is a major contributor to crashes but without more rigorous data we won’t know what reforms will reduce the problem and make Australia’s roads safer for everyone,” Retter says. “The regulation of driver fatigue is a complex policy issue and more detailed research needs to be done on its causes and impacts.” Retter says the fatigue data framework…

The big question: are owner-drivers less safe than other operators? In their 2015 report on the state of the heavy haulage road contract sector, the National Truck Accident Research Centre (NTARC) examined the proportion of major accidents and losses by fleet type. At the macro level, there are many groupings to which road freight transport can be categorised: • by commodity carried • rigid or articulated truck type operations • long distance vs urban operations • ancillary vs for hire operations • fleet vs single driver operators In this case, the owner-driver sector was compared to both the large fleets and the small and medium Australian fleets. The National Transport Insurance heavy truck portfolio is reflected in Table 1, which shows where the problems are in the heavy ‘for hire’…

Bell Heavy Haulage is up to the challenge of difficult times. The Brisbane-based operator lugs heavy equipment across Australia. Established in 1999 by Mark Jenkings, the company has shrunk in size over the past 12 months to get through the quiet times following the end of the resources boom. Jenkings, along with his daughter and national transport manager Chloe Jenkings, decided to sell equipment when the workload started to dissipate. Currently armed with nine prime movers, Jenkings remains positive, saying the downtime won’t last for ever. “When the mining and construction equipment industry went quiet, our customers went from importing 100 plus machines a month to five,” Jenkings says. “We would have 40 machines arrive in Perth and now there’s lucky to be three to four. We had to shrink…

It’s always good to get a pat on the back from the boss. And that’s apparently what Volvo Group Australia executives have enjoyed, courtesy of new global Volvo Group chief Martin Lundstedt. And why not? The Volvo, Mack and UD brands between them last year secured more than a quarter of the Australian heavy duty truck market. Their share of 26 per cent in 2015 was up on nearly 25 per cent in 2014. It makes them the top-selling supplier of heavy duty (HD) trucks in this country. The Volvo cab-over brand achieved just under 15 per cent of the heavy duty market, with stablemate Mack at nine per cent and Japanese sibling UD at two per cent. Paccar (Kenworth and DAF) came in at second place as a truck…

Like many who’ve been bitten by the trucking bug, my infatuation with heavy haulers started early. I blame Weet Bix, actually. In the early 1980s, cereal company Sanitarium were putting truck swap cards in cereal packets. Every new box was eagerly ripped open at the wrong end in a mad scramble to find the latest card featuring a Kenworth, Mack, White, International or, if you were unlucky, a Bedford. This will no doubt only serve to confirm suspicions amongst some that I really did get my truck licence from a cereal packet. POPULAR CULTURE It was, in many ways, a golden age for the image of trucking. The movie Convoy and its soundtrack had been a pop culture hit, while CB radios were widespread and operated like a primitive version…