NTC: imagining road freight's future

"Flexible, responsive and agile" regulation needed to ensure industry capitalises on coming technological change

Michelle Hendy, Chief Planning Officer of the National Transport Commission, says greater communication between governments, industry and manufacturers is crucial to reshaping land transport policy and regulation as technology continues to hasten the sector's evolution.

Speaking at the ATA's recent Trucking Australia 2017 conference in Darwin, Ms Hendy said the NTC has been examining what transport regulation could look like in the future, and ways the government body could prepare to meet the industry's changing needs.

"For the past couple of years the NTC has been saying that Australia's transport system really is set for its biggest change since cars replaced horses, and we've been saying that because everyone involved in transport needs to get ready for truly transformational change … of the kind most of us haven't seen before," she said.

Looking ahead

The NTC produced a report last year titled Land Transport 2040 in which it set out some plausible potential futures for the industry, and says the coming change should be viewed in a positive light.

"At the NTC we recognise that new technology that disrupts the current regulatory framework should really be seen as an opportunity to reform our regulations," she said.

Ms Hendy said four areas had been identified as key factors of change: consumer demand for convenience and new services; automation; shared mobility; and greater data availability and data sharing.

But while identifying those areas is one thing, formulating an approach to deal with each or all of them is another, Ms Hendy said.

"We could regulate in a light touch way and regulate behind the technology curve, or we could create a more outcome-based approach to regulation and step in and ban unsafe products when and if accidents or incidents do occur," she said.

The future of road transport could see the public demanding increased privacy and security, while drivers could become passengers and an increase in effective ride sharing could lead to reduced car ownership.

Similarly, road freight faces an equally rapid phase of change.

"We could see a very different mix of operators, or we could see the same mix behaving very differently," she told conference delegates.

"So the pace of change is accelerating. We really need to understand the changes that are ahead of us, or that are occurring now."

Flexible, responsive and agile

Ms Hendy said the NTC had to be "flexible, responsive and agile" with its regulations, while a 'whole of system' approach was vital to developing a regulatory framework that allowed land transport to take advantage of beneficial technological innovations.

Ms Hendy cited the example of the National Rail Safety Law that was developed a few years ago, saying it already had the flexibility to potentially encompass driverless trains in coming years.

Now the priority for the next decade has shifted to road transport, she said.

"We need to balance the need for a flexible and responsive regulatory environment that allows for innovation, with stable and consistent policy advice – for enforcement officers, for operators and for consumers and manufacturers," she said.

"It's not an easy balancing act."

New thinking

While in the past the road freight industry has been guided largely by prescriptive rules and regulations, that approach may not work with coming technological advances.

"For many rules prescription does actually create barriers to innovation and prescriptive rules can sometimes be driven more by their enforceability than any other specific safety outcomes – that's what we've seen in the past," she said.

However, while there are still many question marks surrounding the future direction of the road transport industry, Ms Hendy said there was one overarching approach able to be embraced now that could have the biggest impact on reshaping road transport's regulatory environment: collaboration.

Collaboration and communication between governments, business and the wider community would open up opportunities to improve transport outcomes, she said.

"The future really isn't going to be shaped just by governments and the regulatory environments we create; these days more and more it's about the consumers and their choices to purchase and use new products and services that will obviously be a key determinant of what our future transport system looks like," she said.

"We really do need a broad discussion – not just the NTC but governments and the industry and the community – about what type of future transport mobility we want for Australia, and what decisions do we need to take now to keep us heading in that direction."

To view the NTC report, Land Transport Regulation 2040, click here.

NTC: imagining road freight's future

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