How the new regime will work

Learn how the new regime will meet regulatory and legislative requirements, enable responsible road management and achieve sustainable heavy vehicle access.

Agreed principles and pillars

The new access regime will be upheld by 5 principles and 4 pillars, agreed to by our Load Carrying Industry Working Group. These principles and pillars are important for the successful implementation of the new regime.

The 5 principles are: consistency, timeliness, certainty, transparency, and customer focus.

The 4 pillars are:

• Access based on network capacity of roads and bridges.
• Access determined under NAAS (via Notice) or NHVR Permit.
• Monitoring tools for network assurance to support access assumptions.
• Road use data to inform our asset management and investment.

Access based on network capacity of roads and bridges

Class 1 Vehicle access will be based on individual structural and network capacity of our roads and bridges, and the load induced by the specific vehicle configuration and load.

For every bridge we will have a profile of what specific Class 1 vehicles can cross that bridge safely, under what access conditions and required level of assurance. We will assess each individual vehicle at different axle groups and masses to give access.

For every road segment we'll have a maximum dimension envelope. We will assess each individual vehicle and load dimensions against the road dimension envelopes to give access.

This is a move away from the prescriptive one-size-fits-all mass and dimension limits we currently have. We are working toward consistency and applying a risk-informed engineering approach to provide individualised access.

Access determined under dynamic notice or permit

Notice access will be determined through the National Automated Access System (NAAS). Class 1 vehicle access under notice will be based on assessment of each individual vehicle's mass and dimensions against the capacity of each road and bridge in Queensland.

The NAAS will generate a tailored state access map for an individual vehicle with associated access conditions.

This map will visually identify a viable route for the journey, and confirm any pilot and escort requirements, special travel conditions over bridges and other important information like time curfews and road closures. This map is the legal access map for the journey to start.

Dynamic notices

There may be instances where the mass and dimensions a vehicle presently operates under in the current regime are not available under notice access. This is because the current load limits on some of our bridges are not sustainable for repeated movements under notice.

In this case, the NAAS will show all restricted bridges and roads to explore options within the system to facilitate notice access such as reducing the load mass, changing vehicle configuration by adding additional axles, or finding an alternative route around the restricted access. This is called a 'dynamic' notice—each time the vehicle details are re-entered, the access map is updated.

National Heavy Vehicle Regulator (NHVR) Permits

If these options do not yield a viable route for the journey under notice or the vehicle does not comply with the NAAS entry criteria and entry dimension envelope of 5.4m high, 8m wide or 45m long, you'll need to apply for a NHVR Permit.

Apply for a permit through the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator (NHVR) GO (portal) (as with the current access regime).

If permit vehicles do not meet the sustainable access limits provided by NAAS, their assessment and movement conditions will be more stringent to ensure risks are being appropriately managed.

Find out how to access the NAAS.

NHVR Permit applications are expected to be reserved for rare, infrequent moves and for special circumstances such as emergency and major infrastructure projects. The permit duration will be based on the movement need. We will no longer be approving blanket 12-month permits and will be scrutinising renewals.

Monitoring tools for network assurance to support access assumptions

Network assurance means we can gain certainty through information gathering, risk assessment, evaluation and review to ascertain whether safety and legislative obligations are being met, and to ensure compliance and enforcement activities are achieving these obligations.

A focus on assurance of network usage, and certainty and transparency of mass also provides a level playing field for all industry operators.

As a responsible road manager, we provide access to our bridges and roads based on our risk appetite formed by information of network usage. When assessing heavy vehicles for bridge access we balance transport productivity and asset consumption.

To ensure we are getting the balance between transport productivity and asset consumption right, the new access regime will allow us to achieve assurance of network use through a combination of monitoring tools including mandatory vehicle Telematics Monitoring Application (TMA) and Smart OnBoard Mass, administered by Transport Certification Australia (TCA).

Read more about telematics and the new access regime.

Using monitoring tools

TMA and Smart OBM are critical tools for Queensland Government, industry operators and road managers to provide assurance around heavy vehicle access to the road network and compliance with access conditions.

TMA records important vehicle positional and speed information, and Smart OBM monitors the mass of a vehicle's axle groups, which when combined can provide valuable insights into vehicle movements and network usage.

We'll also use existing in-road monitoring tools such as weigh-in-motion devices and classifiers to monitor the mass of a vehicle's axle groups, and Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) and CCTV cameras to monitor network usage and compliance with notice and permit bridge conditions such as centreline travel and speed restrictions.

Road use data to inform our asset management and investment

Road use intelligence data will be vital in the new access regime for us to facilitate heavy vehicle access in a way which is both safe and sustainable on our network, whilst balancing the growing demands for Class 1 heavy vehicle movements within the existing constraints of our network and available funding.

We will undertake analytics of the data gathered from monitoring tools. This data, combined with other data sets and engineering risk review, will inform our access and asset management decisions to help us better understand what types of vehicles are moving across our bridges and at what frequency.

This will inform fatigue modelling of our bridges, and inspection and maintenance frequency. It also enables us to plan and invest appropriately in our road network for all road users.

Contact us

To speak with the team, email [email protected]