19th March 2013

PBS report released

ARTSA released its report from the two day heavy vehicle Performance Based Standards conference held in Melbourne in March 2013. Attended by 120 people from across the spectrum of PBS, it demonstrated the strong interest in this world leading scheme.

According to Dr Peter Hart, Chairman of ARTSA “there are six strong themes that came from this event”. They include:

• Adequate resourcing of the NHVR’s PBS secretariat
• Transitioning of popular PBS designs into more generic blueprints
• Revision of standards and development of some new ones including tyre specifications, suspension specifications, self certification and a review of braking requirements
• More assistance for local government to better understand the PBS potential and open up their road networks
• More work on bus standards
• A focus on bridge assessment issues

Dr Hart concluded by saying “we need to work together to tick off some of the hard won ideas put forward at the conference.” ARTSA will be making representations to the NHVR and the NTC on some of the issues highlighted above. The conference report including papers and photos are on the ARTSA PBS 2013 page at http://www.artsa.com.au/library/2013/pbs/