The Australian Road Transport Suppliers Association is an industry association representing manufacturers of heavy vehicle equipment including trucks, trailers and components. It is active in the space of heavy vehicle industry representation and advocacy as well as providing industry thought leadership through its conferences, training, ARTSA Data, ARTSA Institute and the ARTSA Life Members program.

ARTSA Life Member awards – six new members inducted into the group

Media Release

ARTSA Life Members award dinner on the 6th November was another milestone for the organisation with six new life members inducted on the evening:

• Jeff Potter, Senior Manager Productivity, Safety and Environment, NTC
• Dr Peter Sweatman, International Enterprise Professor at the University of Melbourne
• Phil Webb, recently retired from Kenworth after 44 years
• Chris Koniditsiotis, recently retired CEO of TCA
• Trevor Dickson, Technical Sales and Pricing Manager, PACCAR
• Martin Toomey the current chair of ARTSA

ARTSA also had one further award in absentia:

• Bob Edwards, Managing Director of Transport Engineering and Management

According to ARTSA Chair Martin Toomey, “ARTSA Life Members are an invaluable source of information and we aim to harness their advice in the coming years as ARTSA’s role evolves. We very much look forward to their contribution.”

The ARTSA Life Member awards followed the inaugural ceremony in September 2016 where 15 members were inducted.

For further information contact Greg Rowe, Executive Director, Tel 0407 825 132, exec@artsa.com.au

Two ARTSA Reports Highlight PBS Approved Heavy Vehicles

Media Release

The National Heavy Vehicle Regulator (NHVR), Transport Certification Australia (TCA) and the Australian Road Transport Suppliers Association (ARTSA) have demonstrated the success of Australia’s world-leading PBS scheme through two new reports.

The first report titled Performance Based Standards – Australia’s PBS Fleet released today, highlights that:

• One in five relevant new heavy vehicles manufactured in 2018 were PBS approved, up from one in six in 2017
• 1900 new approvals for new PBS combinations in 2018, an increase from around 1400 in 2017
• In the last five years total new PBS combination approvals have doubled, while the heavy vehicle market has only grown by 20 per cent over the same period
• More than 55 per cent of PBS approvals are for truck and dog combinations
• PBS approved prime mover and trailer combinations have doubled in the last five years

ARTSA Chair Martin Toomey said the PBS scheme was encouraging heavy vehicle renewal nationwide. “One of the key benefits of the PBS scheme has been to accelerate the renewal of the heavy vehicle fleet nationwide. The median age of PBS vehicles is four years compared to 12 years for the entire heavy vehicle fleet,” Mr Toomey said.

The second report titled Performance Based Standards – Freight Task Analysis, provides insights into the movements of heavy vehicles certified under the Performance Based Standards (PBS) scheme, using telematics data collected from the TCA’s Intelligent Access Program (IAP) across Australia.

Rob Perkins, Executive Director, ARTSA Data said “the report contains aggregated statistics from registered PBS freight vehicles enrolled in the IAP derived from global positioning system (GPS) records collected from vehicles during 2018. It provides a bird’s-eye view of the movements of a sample of the PBS fleet”.

The report demonstrated that:

• Newer vehicles travelled further per journey and performed more journeys, compared to older vehicles.
• PBS freight vehicles perform a broad mix of freight tasks, with an average journey distance of 158km.

ARTSA collaborates with organisations including the NHVR and TCA to produce informative documents such as this publication, but also provides a commercial service for industry wanting to access more detailed heavy vehicle data. To find out more about ARTSA Data and its collections contact ARTSA Data Executive Director Rob Perkins on rob@artsa.com.au

The reports can be downloaded by visiting www.artsa.com.au

ARTSA Data Market report – December quarter (Q4) 2018

Record breaking year for trucks and trailers, but a slow-down ahead?

The 2018 calendar year for heavy vehicle new registrations was the highest since ARTSA Data began reporting on registration data five years ago. Trailers, prime movers, rigid trucks, special purpose vehicles and buses all achieved the highest new registrations since the series started in 2014.

To read the latest free report, register here.

Heavy vehicle knowledge transfer at a cross roads says ARTSA

Media Release

This week’s ARTSA Heavy Vehicle Training was a sell out with over 40 attendees keen to learn about engineering, certification and modifications from industry practitioners. Held over three days and delivered in collaboration with CVIAA, CVIAV and the VACC, it featured over a dozen industry experts sharing their knowledge across 26 separate topics.

“It highlights the need for knowledge transfer within the heavy vehicle sector,” said Dr Peter Hart, Chairman of ARTSA and Principal of Hartwood Consulting.

“Many of the topics covered are simply not taught in formal courses at TAFE’s or University. Formal education courses have not caught up, but needs to do so before many of our experienced people retire. It is a looming crisis that does not get much coverage,” said Dr Hart.

Whilst the heavy vehicle sector has long been known for critical shortages with drivers, little coverage is given to the need for knowledge sharing in an industry that has always been led by practical people who in many cases have learnt on the job.

“Whilst it is pleasing to have a sell-out audience to share critical knowledge in the heavy vehicle space, we need to find ways to devote more resources to the documentation and dissemination of much of the content covered in the certification, engineering and modification space,” said the ARTSA Chairman.

For further information contact Rob Perkins, Executive Director, tel 0411 402 832, exec@artsa.com.au

Free wall chart with references to the NHVR’s Modifications Code (VSB6)

Click to view…