Safety Strategy * Australia - Should emphasise chain of responsibility

Sydney,NSW,Australia -ATA Friday Facts -25 Feb 2011: -- The final version of the 2011-2020 National Road Safety Strategy should give the planned National Heavy Vehicle Regulator the resources, expertise and authority to take direct carriage of major chain of responsibility investigations, according to the ATA’s submission on the draft... The ATA submission says the strategy should include measures to support the increased use of high productivity vehicles, and calls on governments to provide regulatory incentives for trucking companies to join the TruckSafe safety accreditation program... Independent statistics show that TruckSafe accredited companies are twice as safe as non-accredited companies... The submission also argues that speed compliance measures such as point-to-point speed cameras should target all road users, not just truck drivers. This week, it was revealed that 94,271 speeding motorists in New South Wales have escaped without penalty because the state’s point-to-point speed cameras are only used on trucks... (Image from cairnsunlimited: Australian roadtrain)

* ATA welcomes draft freight strategy that will increase safety

Sydney,NSW,Australia -ATA Friday Facts -25 Feb 2011: -- The ATA has welcomed the Government’s draft National Land Freight Strategy, released this week... The Chairman of the Australian Trucking Association, David Simon, said improving the efficiency of the freight system would have immense benefits for consumers and Australia’s competitiveness... "Under the Government’s plan, operators will be able to carry the same amount of freight with fewer trucks. Reducing the growth in the number of trucks and other vehicles on the road will result in fewer accidents" ... "When B-doubles were first introduced in Australia, some people claimed they would be much more dangerous than existing semi-trailers. Those claims were wrong" ... "Over the years, the use of B-doubles has reduced the national road toll by at least 350 deaths, because it has enabled the trucking industry to move Australia’s freight with 15,000 to 20,000 fewer large trucks" ...  (Image from cairnsunlimited)


* Living Lab fuels new technology for transport and logistics industry

Alexandria,NSW,Australia -Transport & Logistic News -23 Feb 2011: -- Australia’s ICT Research Centre of Excellence NICTA, enterprise software company SAP and Europe’s largest application-oriented research organisation Fraunhofer have established the Future Logistics Living Lab...   The Lab was established to create groundbreaking information technology for the transport and logistics sector. Based in the Australian Technology Park in Sydney, the Living Lab will provide a physical platform for industry and research to work together, to investigate and overcome real-world logistics issues, and to demonstrate and test innovative technology that will provide transport and logistics solutions for the future...  The NSW Government has committed $400,000 to the Fraunhofer Project Group, as part of its recently-launched $36 million Digital Economy Strategy...  The participants joining the founding members are Linfox, Hamburg Süd, Casella Wines, Ericsson, GS1 Australia, Gamma Solutions, Google, Tradegate, XAct Solutions, Victoria University and the University of New South Wales...