Opinion: The trucking reality is often lost

How do we misunderstand the road transport industry? Let me count the ways!

 

Again it is time to re-educate the nation about the structure of the road transport industry.

Why does this need doing?

Because even our operators, associations and many of our government departments, their advisors and chiefs of staff don’t understand the industry.

The Australian road transport industry is comprised of two macro sectors: The smaller ‘hire & reward’ industry that does road transport for money and the larger ‘ancillary’ sector, that does not do transport for money.

In the comparative sizes of these sectors the ancillary heavy truck population is 58 per cent of the Australian fleet and the H&R sector is the minority shareholder was 42 per cent.

Figure 1: Population of Australian Heavy Vehicles Greater than 4.5 Tonne GVM

  

The most recent estimate for the number of fleets in Australia sees an even more pronounced difference with the ancillary fleets outnumber in the H&R sector by a ratio of 2.7:1. And yet when associations talk about ‘the road transport Industry’ they invariably mean the H&R industry only.

Table 1: Ancillary vs Hire & Reward Numbers: Australia

Source: ABS detailed data cubes

Examples of a misunderstood industry

Case 1: A very large government data collection department:  Question: “There are only about 200,000 employed drivers in Australia, but 390,000 heavy trucks. Who drives the rest of them?”

Case 2: A large national association concerned that each increase in truck mass was a threat to its own members. The author explained: “Actually your only threat is a small proportion of the hire and reward trucking sector. The Ancillary Industry is not a treat to your members.” “What is the ancillary industry?” was then asked. “That part of the industry that does not do road transport for money.” The reply was “Then why do they do it?”

Case 3: A very large national transport department undertaking some GPS and data trials for road transport activity capture: Question from the author, “Did you select participants in the trial from the associations that only represent the hire and reward industry?” “Yes” “Did you invite any operators from the ancillary sector to be part of the trials, they do much less kilometres” “What is the ancillary sector?” Those operators who do not do transport for money.” “Where would we find one of those to invite into the trial?”

Case 4: A recent series of safety and health studies into drivers in the road transport sector were referred to as studies into driver health in the “Road Transport Industry”. A query from this author to the researchers: “You did your research on the industry?” “Yes.” “What proportion of the driver samples were from hire and reward companies?”  “All of them, 100 per cent” “Well what about the other 60 per cent of the industry that is not hire and reward? How many of these did you include?” “None,” was the answer. “Then should the report have been called ‘Safety in the Hire and Reward Industry?” “Yes, probably so.”

Needless to say, the ancillary sector is not understood even at the highest levels of government.

Policy implications

A nail in the coffin of Operator Licensing in Australia.

The yell a few years ago was for operator licensing. This is implemented in a few countries where the hire and reward sector is required to go into an ‘operator licensing’ scheme.

This was done for a number of reasons but in Australia it was pushed almost solely by the safety argument.

Actually, the major push behind the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal (RSRT) was on account of driver deaths.

Well, is the hire and reward sector in need of ‘operator licensing’ as a safety reform policy?

Figure 2: A Decade of Driver Death in Australia

 Source: Safework Australia, 2014

 

Safework Australia in 2014 published a great set of data on driver deaths.

What did it show?

The ancillary sector had as many driver deaths as the hire and reward sector, almost identical.

Driver deaths were the central peg in the Transport Workers’ Union RSRT push.

As the ancillary sector does far less kilometres than the hire and reward sector on a per billion kilometre travelled basis the driver fatalities on this metric would suggest that it is the ancillary sector that needs “operator licensing” from a safety perspective so why the push for operator licensing for the hire and reward sector?

The safety argument does not stack up. (It should also be noted that as the registration charges are set on national averages for each truck configuration the hire and reward sector is significantly subsidised by the ancillary sector in its rego charge, but not so in the fuel use charge.)

What about National Operating Standards (NOS)?

Will the new push for NOS to be for the hire and reward industry as was operator licensing?

Will national operating standards apply to the entire Australian road transport feet?  

Getting 60,000 farmers with one truck onto a GPS system paying at least $1 per day for data collection and sending could be a real feat.

Getting the other 160,000 ancillary trucks onto a regulated National Operating Standard will also be a task and a half.

And the reason is?

As with operator licensing, the reason can’t be safety, as the ancillary sector will have a worse major accident rate per million kms travelled than the hire and reward sector, and so there must be other reasons.

Dr Kim Hassall is the national chair of the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport Australia (CILT-Australia)