CHANGES IN THE PRODUCTIVITY MIX FOR AUSTRALIAN URBAN FREIGHT VEHICLES

Regulators in major urban capital cities are looking towards future freight viability strategies that will dampen the growth in urban demand for trucking and commercial vehicle use. To create these strategies it is necessary to know both the patterns of usage for the specific types of truck usage within, into and out of these major urban conurbations as well as the associated productivity improvements for each of these vehicle classes. The trip patterns at the micro level of vehicle use are often poorly understood and, even more important, the productivity interactions between the different vehicle categories and classes. Commercial vehicle numbers by category are driven not only by the more easily seen overall usage trends but also by fleet manager purchasing decisions to swap to higher capacity vehicles. This two dimensional model of commercial vehicle activity by type is rarely examined.Some emerging some fleet trends are becoming apparent in Australian commercial vehicle movements which indicate that switching between fleet categories is the result of operators searching for productivity, and the changing of delivery network demands within the urban environments in which they are operating. Should these trends continue to be realised and facilitated by regulators then a major dampening of the expected urban growth curves for freight vehicle movements could well occur. As well as this 'fleet mix switch' scenario, regulators can further facilitate productivity through the use of performance-based standards, especially within the urban context. Such limited flexibility productivity measures have the ability to make a still further significant productivity benefit to urban commercial vehicle travel and utilisation. A recent Australian case study has demonstrated that the gradual implementation of PBS and fleet productivity benefits could see Urban rigid truck kilometre growth rates being kept to a mere 0.1% increase per annum up until the year 2020. The possibility of constructing such a dampening impact in demand for urban freight transport planners is of major interest for all transport regulators and planners, irrespective of the prescriptive weights and dimension regimes that have been agreed by national regulators