This week I joined a webinar hosted by the international forum HVTT (Heavy Vehicle Transport & Technology) on worldwide trends towards high-productivity transport. The lineup included speakers from China, Sweden, Finland and Australia. 

Les Bruzsa from Australia’s national heavy vehicle regulator (NHVR) presented some of the benefits of high-productivity transport. NHVR’s analysis shows that between 2008 and 2025, utilisation of high-productivity trucks has led to 205 fewer deaths by road crashes, 5.3 billion fewer kilometres of truck travel and 2.35 billion fewer litres of fuel than expected.

Les also gave an example comparing two specific combinations, one slightly longer and heavier. For a freight task of one million-tonne kilometres, the more productive vehicles would travel about 10,000 kilometres less, and reduce fuel use by 11 per cent. Additionally, while the pavement wear was only 2.95 per cent less for a single trip, over multiple trips the reduction in pavement wear is 33 per cent.

Otto Lahti from Finland’s Traficom, the multi-modal Finnish Transport and Communications Agency, showed that higher-productivity vehicles in Finland have, among other benefits, avoided about 780 million kilometres of truck traffic, reduced carbon emissions by 20 per cent, and removed the need for 10,000 drivers.

The general message was similar in presentations about what’s happening in China, India and Sweden.

Productivity gains are made by optimising vehicles to the road network and infrastructure available. The benefits to safety, emissions reduction, and the economy from having a more productive freight system are undeniable. This is what Transporting New Zealand has been advocating for.  

This week it was reported that the NHVR is fast-tracking increased productivity by increasing mass limits. The changes were initially going to commence mid-year, but given the additional stress imposed by fuel prices, they will instead be implemented this month. This will improve productivity across the network and benefit the entire supply chain.  

Meanwhile, in New Zealand, we’re still waiting to hear a decision from Government on the suggestions we’ve made for temporary productivity relief. It concerns me that we have to wait for things to get worse. It’s a fascinating strategy.  

It reminds me of when I coached hockey. It’s a simple game in which you must score more goals than the opposition to win. Therefore, our team’s priority was more towards attacking than defending. If we were leading by one goal, we certainly wouldn’t wait for the opposition to score before we tried to get another goal. Oddly, that’s what the government’s stance on unlocking productivity feels a bit like to me.  

In hockey I’d never sit and wait for things to get worse. Why wait for the opposition to score? Although, at least a worsening score is a clear threshold to base a strategy change on. Whereas we don’t know how bad things will have to be with fuel before Government will allow transport productivity to be improved. 

It also reminds me of Dr. Seuss’ ‘Waiting Place’ in the classic story Oh, The Places You’ll Go! The page reads, “Waiting for a train to go or a bus to come, or a plane to go or the mail to come, or the rain to go or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow or waiting around for a Yes or No, or waiting for their hair to grow. Everyone is just waiting.”  

The key difference is that many countries aren’t waiting, they’re doing.  

Dom Kalasih, Chief Executive of Transporting New Zealand