Benefits and costs of the new access regime

Industry operator and road manager benefits

Through consultation with our Load Carrying Industry Working Group we have agreed the principals of consistency, timeliness, certainty, transparency and customer focus need to be fulfilled to achieve a successful new access regime and deliver the following benefits.

Consistency: Industry operators will benefit from an easy to use Heavy Vehicle Access Management System (HVAMS) which will provide quick and consistent, easily accessible and understood access conditions and restrictions for all roads and bridges in Queensland. The consistent certainty and visibility of access and mass limits will enable industry operators to plan movements with confidence.

Timeliness: Industry operators will benefit from a permit approval process that is no longer labour intensive, cumbersome, slow, and inconsistent which will improve timeliness and help increase the productivity of their business operations.

Currently, due to the time it takes to complete permit assessments, some operators lose jobs. The time delays also often result in expedited grant of permits by the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator (NHVR) under the Heavy Vehicle National Law without completed road manager assessment. About 1 in 3 Class 1 vehicle permit renewals are expedited, heightening road manager risks.

Certainty: The biggest limitation of the current Class 1 vehicle access regime for both industry operators and TMR is certainty. The new heavy vehicle access regime will give industry operators increased certainty and visibility of access and mass limits and reduce multiple 'just in case' permits. This will allow industry operators to plan moves with confidence. TMR will gain certainty of network use and vehicle and load mass to ensure we are getting the balance between transport productivity and asset consumption right.

Transparency: Industry operators will benefit from clarity and visibility of road network access which will enable them to plan and secure access to support their business. TMR will gain transparency of vehicle movements and their loads to better understand the actual mass, loading, frequency and behaviour of movements our roads and bridges are being subjected to. This will allow us to manage our assets effectively and in an informed manner. It will also give TMR oversight of compliance with Notice and Permit access conditions to inform assessment parameters.

Customer focus: Industry operators will benefit from a heavy vehicle access system that is quick, visual and easy to use. A system that is easier to understand and tailored to their vehicle will enable them to better meet their customer needs. To give industry operators full productivity benefits, access limits will be based on individual structural capacity and for their specific vehicle rather than a one-size-fits all approach. Industry operators will also benefit from an access regime which will provide an even playing field with vehicle access being consistent for all operators.

For more information, read What the new access regime means for a small or large operator.

Economic benefits and costs

To understand the worth of the new heavy vehicle access regime, we commissioned an external economist HoustonKemp to complete a cost benefit economic analysis of the proposed new access regime implemented across all state-controlled and local government roads in Queensland.

The analysis considered the financial and economic costs, and the associated benefits of the new regime compared to TMRs existing permit-based framework with engineering assessment enacted to manage risk. Industry costs and benefits were based on information provided by our Industry Working Group members.

Table 1 shows a summary of the benefit cost ratio calculated for a low scenario and high scenario, with dollar values in millions and over a 20-year period. The new regime provides a positive benefit cost ratio (BCR) of between 8.62 for a low scenario and 36.78 for a high scenario, which is very impressive. A BCR shows the relationship between costs and benefits of a project—a BCR of greater than 1.0 will deliver a positive net present value to TMR and industry operators.

Table 1: Benefit cost ratio summary for low and high scenarios

Greatest benefits

The greatest benefit to industry is avoiding time delays as permits will no longer be needed to move. This results in less lost jobs and an even playing field across all industry operators. Access under the HVAMS notice is immediate and saves about $844.8m for a low case scenario or up to $4037.9m for a high case scenario over a 20-year period.

The dynamic notice provides on-demand access and certainty which enables operators to plan vehicle and load combinations and routes instantly within the system. These efficiencies and operational flexibility provide significant savings of between $126.7m and $504.7m over a 20-year period.

Administrative savings are another major industry benefit as Industry operators will not need to apply and pay for permits to move. The savings are estimated to be $33.7m for a low case scenario or up to $49.4m for a high case scenario over a 20-year period.

Road managers will also benefit from resource savings for processing permits, and having the ability to make strategic asset management insights and investment based on known network usage.

Associated costs

Fitting telematics to Class 1 vehicles will be the main cost associated with the new regime. At this stage, the cost of onboard mass has been estimated with rates for hardware fitment, but future market demand will likely reduce these initial costs considerably as the technology becomes widely used.

For TMR and road managers there are costs associated with collecting the data to populate HVAMS and on-going system costs and telematics monitoring costs.

Overall benefits

Overall, the BCR demonstrates that the benefits to industry and road managers far outweigh the costs and investments in telematics and data. We have determined an industry break-even point will occur between a few months to 3 years depending on the size of your business and continual reliance on permits.

The cost benefit analysis also identified additional benefits that were not fully quantified. These include improved:

• ability for industry operators to plan for the future
• ability for industry to comply with access conditions
• access decision making by local governments
• ability to respond to state emergencies and disasters.

Read the executive summary report from Houston Kemp economists for more information about the economic benefits and costs.