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NHVR pledges to boost PBS processing

National regulator acknowledges impacts of delivery delays

 

The National Heavy Vehicle Regulator (NHVR) has acknowledged personnel issues on top of higher demand have crimped its ability to carry out Performance Based Standards (PBS) scheme functions in a timely manner.

The issue made headlines a week ago, when Heavy Vehicle Industry Australia (HVIA) complained publically that months of its warnings and efforts to help overcome delays had failed to improve matters and that the situation is worsening.

HVIA chief executive Todd Hacking has called for “interim approval mechanism” to be introduced as a short-term measure to tackle an immediate crisis but that is not mentioned in the NHVR’s response.


Read how the HVIA lost patience with the NHVR over PBS approvals, here


“We are currently experiencing some operational challenges due to the significant increase in application volumes and departure of senior PBS team members,” NHVR vehicle safety and performance director Peter Austin explains.

“This has impacted our ability to assess and process applications within acceptable timeframes.

“We understand the impact that increased processing times has on all parts of the industry, and we are implementing initiatives and working with stakeholders to improve our service delivery.

“So far, we have allocated additional resources and streamlined our procedures to improve data consistency, automate processes and remove double handling of vehicle data.

“We have also been working closely with PBS certifiers and assessors to issue approvals more quickly.

“Longer term, we will continue to transition PBS services into the NHVR Portal and introduce more efficient processes for low risk applications.

“While we make these improvements, we understand that operators need certainty around when applications will be issued.

“For complete and accurate Vehicle Approval applications, the NHVR’s processing time is currently 25 business days.

“This timeframe will improve as additional remediation actions are implemented, and we aim to reduce turnaround as quickly as possible.

“Moving forward, we will provide Certifiers and Assessors with a weekly update on processing times and volumes, and we have asked them to keep their customers advised of any changes.”

 

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