This week saw the return of the TMC from which I’ve learned so much over the years.
The Australian Trucking Association’s Technical and Maintenance Conference has been going on for nearly 30 years, but has had a hiatus in recent years. After happening only online in 2020 during covid, 2021, and 2022 were missed. But it made a big return this weekend 2023 with record numbers registering to attend.
One of the abiding memories of the TMC, under many of its different variations, is simply the honest and open interaction which takes place between groups of people who don’t necessarily agree with each other or get on particularly well in their professional life, but manage to make the TMC a forum where everybody can openly discuss all of the issues which are facing the industry without fear of creating too much trouble.
In past years, a confrontational approach was sometimes taken by some attendees at the regular sessions where r representatives of the roadside enforcement organisations would field questions from people who maintain and run truck fleets around Australia.
Some of the robust discussions of the past weren’t quite fiery, but all parties managed to be civilised enough to be able to have a drink together at the end of the day.
A lot of the heat has been taken out of the issues around enforcement, due to the introduction of the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator, which has has taken a much less aggressive approach to roadside enforcement and has introduced a level of civility and practicality into the process.
We are also living in very interesting times with the advent of new technologies being developed for the trucking industry, as we attempt to make a move away from fossil fuels and develop a trucking industry which can function whilst producing zero carbon emissions.
The fact that, not only, have the width restrictions been increased for trucks, but that there is now a process to enable higher front axle mass in several states on vehicles using alt-power, like electric or hydrogen powered trucks
After the initial flurry of ideas about future power sources for the trucking industry, we are now getting down to the nitty gritty of how it might work. We still have no real idea of how the whole alt-power process will play out, because it’s difficult to judge, at this point, as to how effective each new technology which is being pursued will be in Australian conditions.
We know we suffer from the tyranny of distance and we know that the more simple solutions which are likely to play out both in the US and in Europe, basically electrifying all trucks, is not going to work for us here.
We are going to have to develop policies, processes and source technologies which will be able to power the trucking industry into 2050.
It was quite gratifying, this week with the return of the TMC, to see that the people attending the conference, those who are going to be the ones which will have to deal with technical problems out on the road when these new trucks arrive are already thinking hard about the process, asking lots of well informed questions and clearly having an understanding of quite how complicated and nuanced this these developments are going to be.
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