Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme Green Paper

The Chairman of the ATA, Trevor Martyn, said including the transport sector in the forthcoming emissions trading scheme was much better for the trucking industry than the alternative – the imposition of complex regulations that would strangle small trucking companies in green tape.

“The Government’s preferred position is that fuel companies would be responsible for buying carbon pollution permits. They would simply add the cost of these permits onto the price of fuel. Trucking companies and their customers would then be able to make their own decisions about how to deal with the increased fuel price,” Martyn said.

“The alternative is that we would be strangled in green tape, such as mandatory engine requirements or even attempts to ban all older trucks from the road.”

Martyn welcomed the Government’s plan to cut the fuel tax paid by the industry to offset the initial rise in the price of fuel. The Government will review this fuel tax cut after one year.

“The plan will give trucking companies more time to get ready to pass the eventual increase in the cost of fuel on to their customers, but they must start now and not wait until 2010 or 2011,” he said.

“The spiralling price of diesel means that every trucking company should be passing on their fuel costs right now. The ATA believes that every trucking company should:

• understand their costs and review them every week;
• negotiate with their customers to increase their freight rates or impose a fuel surcharge; and
• refuse to accept jobs that do not pay enough to cover their costs.”

Martyn said the Government would need to complement the introduction of emissions trading with a package of measures to make it cheaper for trucking companies to reduce their use of diesel.

“The ATA believes these complementary measures should include:

• Regulatory reforms to enable the industry to increase its productivity, such as allowing the use of B-triple super trucks between Australia’s capital cities. A typical linehaul operator would save more than 2 million litres of diesel a year by using B-triples; this would reduce its direct greenhouse gas emissions by more than 5,900 tonnes per year.
• Strong congestion management measures in major cities, because congestion accounts for 40 per cent of the fuel consumed in urban areas.
• Research and development funding for alternative fuels technology, coupled with funding for research and development into engine technology; and – Examining the commercial feasibility of cross-corporation integrated logistics systems, including cooperative loading schemes.”

The National Transport Commission released a discussion paper today that looks at many of these measures; it also looks at altering heavy vehicle charges to encourage governments to allow the increased use of high productivity vehicles.

“The NTC wants to introduce ‘incremental pricing’, which means that operators would be allowed to operate heavier trucks on some routes in return for paying higher charges,” Martyn said. “Experience has shown that proposals like these don’t work. Governments introduce the higher charges with great enthusiasm, but never get around to delivering the extra road access part of the deal.”

Martyn said the trucking industry would hold a major technical conference in November to examine how the industry can use less fuel through better technology, maintenance and operations.

“The 2008 Technical and Maintenance conference will run from 9-11 November, and we expect it to attract enormous interest from workshop and operations managers across the industry. It will have practical demonstrations and workshops, including demonstrations of how better driver training can deliver fuel savings of up to 20 per cent,” he said.

Registrations for the conference will open shortly.