Re: Road Cost Recovery.

[mauried@commslab.gov.au (Maurie Daly)]

>Could this possibly mean that truck drivers causing excessive damage can be
>taken to court or come to an out of court agreement with Vicroads? Following
>on, it could be argued many/most large trucks excessively damage the roads
>in normal use. How many of these are taken to court? Precious few I bet.
>How does one report this 'excessive damage'?  Perhaps this could be used to
>tip the balance a little more in favour of rail which can carry heavy loads
>without excessive damage to roads we all pay for.

>What do others think?

The concept is good , however in reality the Govt sidesteps the excess damage 
bit by building roads which are of such design that they can take the full 
weight of the heaviest trucks, including b triples.
Ive just had a good look at the new road road being built between Goulburn and 
Canberra , (its part of the program to duplicate the highway) and the 
construction techniques being employed are beyond belief.
The new road is constructed of incredibly thick concrete with massive layers 
of reinforced steel running thru the concrete .
You could land a jumbo jet on the road and it wouldnt flinch.
The real problem here , is that the cost of building the road , is totally out 
of proportion to the real cost of what building the road should cost if it 
were not being designed to cater for the heavy trucks.
ie the poor motorist is being asked to pay for a road to carry trucks..
Similarily if one looks at the total costs of bringing main roads up to a 
standard where they can happily handle the heavier trucks , in the case of the 
Hume Highway , the total cost will exceed $1.3 billion if its ever completed, 
and a larger number for the Pacific Highway to Brisbane.
The very large costs are simply to carry the trucks.
If you asked the trucking industry to pay the cost of the highway improvements 
, they would go broke overnite.
The real culprit in all of this , is not so much the trucks themselves , but 
the Federal Fuel excise , which brings in so much money every year to the 
federal coffers , that they (the feds) can afford to simply keep building 
extravagent roads forever.
To level the playing field,(which seems to be the buzzword these days) between 
road and rail means either 
1/ Increasing cost recovery from the trucking industry for the true cost of 
roads. (no chance at all of this happening.)
2/ Improving the rail right of way to make trains more able to compete with 
the trucks. (no chance of this happening either.)
3/ Getting rid of completely , the idiotic track access charges that rail 
operators have to pay , and simply charge a registration fee for locomotives , 
in the same way that trucks are charged.
(This could be done without a great deal of angst,provided that we could get 
rid of the multipliciity of Rail Access Authorities,not impossible , but more 
likely than 1 or 2.)

The worst case scenerio is probably the most likely ,ie , the feds get out of 
rail all together (when they sell their share of NR), the ARTC is a flop due 
to lack of funds to fix the crummy tracks, we cant get rid of the idiotic 
access charges, and rail slowly fades away. (Would anyone care, apart from the 
rail fans)

cheers
MD