Heavy Vehicle Road Reform Phase One

Improve transparency around expenditure, investment and service delivery

The first phase of the Heavy Vehicle Road Reforms (HVRR) is focused on improving transparency around:

• road spending,
• road assets, and
• levels of service for heavy vehicle road users.

Fundamentally, properly functioning markets require informed users and road providers. The measures outlined below, aim to establish a baseline of information required to transition to the provision of heavy vehicle infrastructure as an economic service over the longer term:

• Expenditure Plans
• Asset Registers and Heavy Vehicle Infrastructure Ratings (HVIR)
• Practical ways for industry to negotiate and pay for improved access

Combined with better information about what trucks are travelling where, more open information about roads is a key foundation of the reforms.

Progress

Substantial progress has been made on phase one of the reform.

Work since 2015 to create nationally consistent, annually updated road Expenditure Plans, Asset Registers, and Heavy Vehicle Infrastructure Ratings (HVIR), has delivered successful "proof of concepts" and an early framework for sharing more open information about road assets, the level of service, and spending across jurisdictions.

It has also begun to show more clearly where the important data gaps and inconsistencies exist.

Next steps

Maintaining and supporting projects focused on continuous improvement in road data quality, openness, and sharing arrangements will be critical to support future reform goals and improved road transport outcomes generally.

Through the officials" groups supporting the Transport and Infrastructure Council, governments are working together to continue annual updates and ongoing improvements to the road Asset Registers, HVIR and Expenditure Plans. This will be achieved through improved data accessibility and transparency, increased breadth and quality of data, and data harmonisation across the states and territories. Priorities for 2018–2020 include:

• Progressively including more roads to cover all state-managed roads
• Pilot programs focused on including data for significant local government roads
• Connecting to relevant open data portals in accessible formats, in line with best practice open data principles
• Introducing an interactive map format to enhance transparency and accessibility of data
• Investigating opportunities to pilot streamlined or automated techniques for secure data sharing and publication

Expenditure Plans

Road Expenditure Plans provide detailed information on the expenditure and investments governments plan to make over the next four years to ensure roads that connect Australia's most significant places for freight, meet the needs of users. They include planned road maintenance and renewal spending, as well as road upgrades (capital expenditure).

NOTE: The Expenditure Plans are provided by each state and territory, and while every effort has been made to provide accurate and up to date information, it should be noted that variations exist in the methodologies employed by states and territories to record and account for planned road expenditure. As such, caution should be exercised in comparing data between jurisdictions. Governments are working together to harmonise road expenditure and asset reporting data across jurisdictions and the outcomes of this work will inform future refinements of road Expenditure Plans.

Asset Registers and Heavy Vehicle Infrastructure Ratings (HVIR)

The road Asset Registers provide detailed information on the dimensions, construction and condition of each 100m segment of road. The Heavy Vehicle Infrastructure Ratings (HVIR) give an overview of level of service provided to heavy vehicle operators across various road categories. A segment that is above the expected level for a particular road category is coloured blue; within the expected range is coloured green; while those with a rating below the expected range are coloured red. Roads without a data overlay appear yellow.

This guide provides more detail on how roads were categorised and how the ratings were developed.

The information is provided in both data tables and map files.

NOTE: The information/data has been collected for internal use by state & territory governments, and is provided as an information resource only. Use of the information is at recipient's own risk. It is not a substitute for independent professional advice and recipient should exercise their own skill, care and judgement with respect to the use of data/information.

Data provided represent heavy vehicle access at a point in time only and will not be representative of legally approved networks. Operators of vehicles should continue to refer to state and territory bodies for legally approved networks in each state or territory.

Whilst all reasonable care has been taken in its preparation, the publishers make no representations and give no guarantees or warranties in respect of the Information, and will not have any legal liability for any loss of data or any other loss or damage suffered by recipients (including without limitation, to a recipient's systems and equipment) arising from or in connection with the accuracy, reliability, currency, suitability or completeness of the Information.

While every effort has been made to provide accurate and up to date information, it should be noted that variations exist in the methodologies employed by states and territories to collect and report road asset data. As such, caution should be exercised in comparing data between jurisdictions. Governments are working together to harmonise road expenditure and asset reporting data across jurisdictions and the outcomes of this work will inform future refinements of the Asset Registers and Heavy Vehicle Infrastructure Ratings.

Each year the goal is to include more roads in the Asset Registers and HVIR. This table summarises the amount of data at each annual update (as of August 2018).

Practical ways for industry to pay for improved access

In November 2015, the Transport and Infrastructure Council agreed that the Austroads Framework for Guiding Private Sector Participation be adopted by road managers. The framework aims to provide more certainty of process for all parties in negotiations on paying for improved high productivity vehicle access on public roads.

The framework provides a generic guide for private investment in public road infrastructure to improve heavy vehicle access and was developed to guide interactions between road owners (including local councils) and the heavy vehicle industry.

The framework is intended to be used for one-off, smaller-scale, high productivity vehicle access enhancements, including first/last mile, farm gate access and pinch points (e.g. bridges). The framework ensures that heavy vehicle operators consider the benefits that they expect to receive from smaller-scale road enhancements in light of the costs to road owners of such enhancements.

• Austroads Report–Improving Freight Vehicle Access through Direct Private Investment in Public Road Infrastructure: A Framework for Guiding Private Sector Participation PDF: 2235 KB
• Attachment–Checklist to guide negotiations on paying for heavy vehicle access improvements PDF: 146 KB