18 minute read
League of their Own
Debates’ organised across 40 cities in Europe, US, Canada and Singapore, as well as the views from research activities and workshops carried out in the frame of the EC funded projects CARTRE and ARCADE. While the findings outline the views of the relevant cities in which the debates were held, the methodologies embodied a lot of common sense that government and other agencies could apply in any setting. Gareth Robins, EROAD Director of Analytics, presented on new opportunities being opened by GNSS-based telematics data. “There are two emerging advantages I wanted to illustrate when I presented,” Gareth noted. “One is that, with connected vehicles on the network, we are able to measure both behavior and near misses and provide a faster feedback loop for road controlling authorities to test the efficacy of safety interventions. The other is that it becomes possible to see where ‘black spots’ might next emerge because of the way real people interact on a daily basis with a section of infrastructure. Both advantages enable a less costly and more efficient approach to reducing deaths and serious injuries on our roads.” Gareth’s work in this domain is gaining traction internationally. The Transport Research Board in the United States has appointed Gareth to the Trucking Industry Research Committee. It reviews a wide range of research topics such as business economics, truck operations, supply chain logistics, shipper/carrier/consignee issues, labour market and human resource issues. He is also a member of the Freight Transportation Data Committee. This identifies and publicises data on commodity movements, international trade, freight transportation activity, and the economics and organisation of establishments engaged in freight transportation. These levels of insight reflect the mass of data ITS systems gather. Data privacy is a paramount concern. As EROAD’s Director of Regulatory Market Development, I also had the opportunity to present on this topic. With the amount of data out there, and the ability to combine it to reveal unexpected insights, almost all of it needs to be treated as personal data. The drive for open data has merit, but it tends to forget that the data is about people and is not a free good. Privacy and enforcement frameworks offer some protections. But there is a pressing question around data ownership that governments will need to grapple with, sooner rather than later. Australia’s role in this area has been acknowledged, and Brisbane will be hosting the 17th Asia Pacific ITS Forum in May 2020.
OF THEIR OWN LEAG
A FLEET OF THE NEWEST SCANIA NTG COMMERCIAL VEHICLES HAVE BEEN PURCHASED BY GLEN CAMERON GROUP TO COINCIDE WITH ITS RECENTLY SECURED AIR LIQUIDE ACCOUNT. IT REPRESENTS, GIVEN THE SHEER SCALE OF THE LOGISTICAL AND SAFETY ELEMENTS INVOLVED, ONE OF THE MOST AMBITIOUS PROJECTS UNDER TAKEN FOR THE PROMINENT TRANSPORT COMPANY.
Last month logistics specialist, Glen Cameron Group, amidst several significant developments at the company, announced it would service the distribution network of industrial gas and services giant Air Liquide. The operation comprises, at present, 18 depots in four states and employs 112 staff. A French multinational, whose 100 year history has seen it expand into 80 countries worldwide, Air Liquide, is also a leading supplier of gas and services locally, working across healthcare, manufacturing, food, research and mining. Air Liquide offers bulk and packaged gases to its customers, the distribution of which is achieved through bulk tankers, 8-tonne mini-bulk rigid vehicles and B-double combinations. Its bulk gas products consist of oxygen, nitrogen, argon or carbon dioxide making it something of a juggernaut in the precious cargo sector. Packaged gases are provided across 100 different types of cylinder products. That’s a big ask for any truck fleet covering vast distances and remote locations in contrasting climates. Scania is one of only three commercial vehicle manufacturers so far entrusted with the task. The timing of the announcement, which involves the procurement of over 140 pieces of new motorised and trailing
UE
equipment, can’t be lost on anyone aware that Glen Cameron Group appointed, back in July, a new CEO, Nick Capp, whose hiring could be said to have gone under the radar as far as industry announcements for key personnel like executives goes. Capp, who returns to the world of Australian road transport has taken up the newly created position after 25 years of experience in logistics and freight management with the likes of Linfox, PricewaterhouseCoopers and Telstra. Glen Cameron Group, according to Nick, was a long time competitor he greatly admired and when he was informed of the newly created role of Group CEO, he wasted no time weighing up the opportunity. “I’ve always held Glen in a high regard and in turn looked upon his business with great respect and admiration for its prospects and opportunities,” he says. “I am excited to lead the company through its next stage of growth and development.” Operational rollout of the contract commenced in early September with 12 vehicles dedicated to transit routes along the Eastern Seaboard. South Australia was added a few weeks later. Handover of operations was completed in November. The contract represents a number of breakthroughs for the organisation as it expands its operations into Far North Queensland. It’s a five year contract, marking the company’s first ever dangerous goods account, and also brings its logistics operations into Port Kembla and Port Pirie. Strict processes for loading and unloading hazardous goods are in place. That there
is a variation across different loading points as well as unloading points makes it all the more critical to get the systems of protocol right. According to Nick, knowledge and the transfer of knowledge, as he tells it, remains ongoing and necessitates a healthy collaboration in partnership with the Air Liquide team. “There’s a really strong connection and interaction between our team and the Air Liquide team daily to make sure everything is running the right way and not just for a safety perspective but obviously for customer service and everything that goes with it,” he says. “They’re highly conscious of that.” A turn of the century French engineer, inventor and chemist, Georges Claude was the first man to apply an electrical discharge to a sealed tube of neon gas to create a lamp. In partnership with eventual company president, Paul Delorme, who he had met while studying at the École de Physique et de Chimie Industrielle in Paris, Claude had founded L’Air Liquide S.A in 1902. At the time Claude had developed a process for producing liquefied air in quantity having proposed the use of liquid oxygen in iron smelting long before it was more widely used three decades later. Among his discoveries, Claude determined that acetylene gas could be transported safely by dissolving it in acetone. This method was also later adopted during the expansion of the acetylene industry. It was studying inert gases, however, that Claude made his name when he found that passing an electrical current through them produced light and the same year he developed the neon lamp which he exported for use in signs and lights in the United States. It was in 1957 that Air Liquide arrived in Australia. In less than a decade it had installed its first air separation unit with liquid capacity. Now it is considered a leading supplier of industrial and medical gases and equipment for homecare, servicing thousands of customers and home oxygen and sleep apnoea patients across the country. The company also delivers a major safety solution in mining, a polymer hollow
Nick Capp.
fibre gas separation technology is applied to generate nitrogen which helps prevent gas explosions in underground mines where high methane levels effectuate evacuations that shut down the area before it is eventually stabilised. As a technology, it helps control and mitigate these problems without the operation having to abandon the mine. A product shortage for something like gas, crucial to a range of manufacturing processes, would create significant issues for its customer operations so it’s vital that it gets moved safely with upmost efficiency. This is where safety and compliance come to the fore for Glen Cameron Group. “Glen and his team have invested a lot in this area. I saw this when I was on the other side of the fence,” Nick says. “And that really counts at an operation like Air Liquide. We’re really focused on an investment in training. It’s a highly skilled environment.” In partnership with Air Liquide Australia, the Glen Cameron Group team conducts and maintains a comprehensive theory and practical training program. Part of this involves a guide for upskilling a new driver assigned to the Air Liquide Australia operations that takes a minimum of four to six weeks before they are deemed qualified for the task. At the time they will learn up to 15 different
Nick Capp CEO, Glen Cameron Group
modules of training, first at a theory level and then later at a practical level. A continuous cycle of updated training and assessments follows for all of its employees. Nick says the over-investment in training is not by accident. “Once you’re in that environment, it’s really important that you stay up to date,” he says. “We’re meeting with all current requirements in terms of handling those gasses at loading, in transit and the unload point.” A large part of the fleet for this contract is consolidated with Scania commercial vehicles. Glen Cameron Group has purchased 26 new Scanias that include NTG twin-steer 6x4s and 8x2s for the rigid applications, G450s for the single trailers and for the B-doubles the newly released G500s, a formidable machine on the flat terrain linking the 12 sites that stretch from Port Pirie in SA, throughout Victoria, across New South Wales and up into northern Queensland. All are Euro 6 emissions compliant as mandated by Air Liquide. Glen Cameron Group Asset Manager Shane Coates said the G500 makes for an ideal metro runner for B-double applications. “It has been returning excellent fuel outcomes,” he says. “As the bulk of these routes involve negligible climbs we have opted for the new NGT G500 13-litre engine. It produces a significant 2,550 newton metres of torque without having to upgrade to a 15 or 16 litre engine.” The task involved is mostly local and regional, with the G500s ideally suited to large roaming areas where the topography won’t present a challenge for the DC13 155 13-litre six-cylinder turbo-diesel
engine and offers a compromise and balance between the torque required of it and preferable fuel outcomes. The twin steer Scanias are a mix of P320s and P450s, towing dog trailers. In the application Shane says there is several Fassi cranes fitted behind the cabs where the twin steer’s additional weight increase allows for 11 tonnes over the steer. “Over the last two years we have purchased around 40 of the Scania 8x2 twin steer product, many of them for our Interstate PUD business as they are an ideal solution when we encounter heavy weights over the steer,” he says. “Given we’re often dealing with uneven load distribution it’s an ideal vehicle insofar that while we are always leaving the yard legal, the challenge is to stay legal as the load diminishes from the rear.” A twin-steer truck capable of grossing 11 tonnes over the front axles therefore provides a solution to this challenge explains Shane. “If we were to remove four pallets for example off the back of a 6x2 vehicle the weight over the steer axles increases and the Scania twin-steer product solves the impediment,” he says. The Scania G450s are being used for single trailer applications in the Air Liquide tanker fleet. At present, according to Shane, around 150 of these operate in the fleet with outstanding aftermarket support around the country. All of the Scania trucks procured for the Air Liquide contract from South Australia across to Victoria and right up the east coast of Australia are covered under a full comprehensive maintenance regime within the Scania support network for the duration of the contract. “This removes any variable or unexpected maintenance related costs in a range of otherwise remote areas where R&M costs can typically increase,” he says. “Scania owns all of its dealerships and that works well for us as we reach into one place, with one person, at an agreed price to provide outcomes and solutions for us regardless of the location.” Queensland provides a unique set of challenges for the application given the drivers operate alone at unmanned depots without management on site. Drivers effectively run the tanks that they source from various inhouse and external supply points and refill. Those same drivers are then out completing the runs on their own, delivering into a whole range of customer sites. Where there might be inimitable complexities on certain tasks at hand the adroitness of the Scania G500s, G450s and twinsteers assist in overcoming the many and varied challenges in providing Air Liquide with the best and most efficient logistics solution. Following the purchase of any commercial vehicle, Scania provide comprehensive one on one driver trainer in cab support that ensures drivers for Glen Cameron Group are extracting the most amount of value from the vehicle, particularly as it relates to fuel. Drivers can do up to four modules at the most in theory every week, notwithstanding the intensive practical training also required. “They’re buddied up with experienced drivers and go through all the practical training and understanding as we’ve been slowly rolling out our implementation and takeover,” Nick says. “Like most businesses there’s always the specifics around an individual customer drop off point which typically are not in your theory and manuals but are in the practical application and we’ve very much
got to keep that updated and make it as close to what is expected as possible.” Competitive advantages are hard won. Practically no one, develops a quick and practiced mastery of the supply chain, without years of dedication and experience. Juggling 20 cent pieces at a pay phone to check in with his drivers, long before he came to prominence, must now seem like a distant dream from another lifetime for Glen Cameron. Road transport, not unlike any major industry, is humbling for its cumulative challenges. New technology, which promises to solve so many of these is also, with the rate of change, one of them. According to Nick, the rollout of new technologies at Glen Cameron Group has got him especially enthused about the role he can provide for customers. “We’re seeing the initiatives that are coming through now and how to improve the way that we operate with our customers and that’s an area that we’re excited about,” he says. “I’m sponsoring a range of programs that we’re rolling out to different customers across the different divisions that will make business easier for everyone. We’re focused on visibility and real time actioning and event management. With such a broad array of thousands of customers we need to be able to provide that everywhere and that really helps us with our own planning and operational efficiencies.”
Australia’s Only End to End PBS Solutions Consultancy
Only Smedley’s consult across multiple locations, drawing on eight generations of engineering expertise. Our engineers are dedicated to providing the most innovative solutions for the road transport industry.
CERTIFICATION • Performance Based Standards (PBS) • Australian Design Rule (ADR) Certification • Permit Applications, Management & Assistance • Road Friendly Suspension (RFS) Certification
HEAVY VEHICLE & GENERAL ENGINEERING • Australian Design Rule (ADR)
Engineering & Compliance • Plant Walkways, Ladders, Platforms and Access • Mechanical Design
TESTING & SIMULATION • Instrumented Dynamic Road & Track Testing • Performance Based Standards (PBS) Assessments • Durability Testing • Dynamics Simulation
SAFETY • Crash/Incident Reconstruction • Heavy Vehicle & Operations
Safety Auditing
R E P
PERFORMANCE
VEHICLES APPROVED FOR PERFORMANCE-BASED STANDARDS ARE POISED TO CLOSE IN ON A NEW RECORD FOR UPTAKE THIS YEAR. INTERNATIONAL INTEREST FOR THE AUSTRALIAN SCHEME FOR HIGH PRODUCTIVITY VEHICLES IS ON THE RISE. THE NATIONAL HEAVY VEHICLE REGULATOR HAS BEEN ACTIVE IN SPREADING THE MESSAGE TO LOCAL COMMUNITIES REGARDING PBS ACCESS, ACCREDITATION AND EDUCATION AHEAD OF THE ANTICIPATED NEXT PHASE PBS 2.0.
Fonterra milk tankers in a PBS approved A-double.
EAT
An upsurge in approved PBS applications over the past year has come as a further endorsement by industry as the scheme surpasses the number of design applications achieved over the same period in 2018. Despite levelling out in the back half of last year, the demand for performance-based standards combinations year-to-date have continued to rise, bucking the trend. Recommended changes to the design approval process have had the desired effect, with the average PBS design application now approved inside a week. The benefits across pre-advised applications as well as the simplified process for PBS design variations has given industry renewed confidence according to National Heavy Vehicle Regulator Chief Engineer Les Bruzsa. “The system is now flexible enough that should a customer want to develop a new PBS concept or change an existing PBS design, they will no longer have to wait up to eight weeks,” he says. “Industry has increased confidence in the PBS process and especially how the NHVR is handling PBS applications. Instead of having very complex PBS applications for a range of potential prime mover, trailer and suspension options, the number of simple PBS designs developed by industry have started to increase. We are getting preadvised applications through the system in only two days.” Increasing awareness also helps. The NHVR identified knowledge gaps across the industry and through its PBS demonstration days, has conveyed
Les Bruzsa, NHVR Chief Enginer.
the benefits of investing in PBS across regional Australia with the goal to deliver a message that resonates with attendees on how it can make life easier for everyone involved in the supply chain. Tim Hansen, Engagement Specialist at the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator, has been on the ground in New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory this year, facilitating consultative mechanisms and cross-industry cooperation in the interests of boosting PBS vehicle uptake and improving road infrastructure. His efforts have also contributed to a shift in how government, business and industry work towards a safer and more productive future while ensuring better safety outcomes for the wider community. Alongside team members John Gilbert OAM (National Manager), Simone Reinertsen (Victoria, SA and Tasmania) and Dan Casey (Queensland), Tim and the stakeholder team have actively been promoting the latest PBS innovations across the country through close collaboration with local councils, heavy
NHVR community engagement day.
vehicle operators, transport associations as well as broader members of the community including farmers, caravaners and the supply chain at large. Local council cooperation, particularly with heavy vehicle operators, makes these demos successful according to Tim. “The PBS demonstration is a concept that began in Bundaberg, Queensland, about three years ago,” he says. “From the beginning, we have always tailored these days to highlight the local freight task. So, in Bundaberg, there is an emphasis on timber and sugar whereas in Forbes we see combinations suited for food and grain haulage.” There are two key objectives with the demonstration days. The first according to Tim is to increase awareness by spreading information about PBS. “It’s an opportunity for participants to walk in the shoes of someone else and better understand the opportunities and challenges that PBS presents,” he says. “Secondly, these events can help grow road networks by enabling more preapprovals and finding ways to streamline the route access process.” With the response time significantly reduced for design applications and vehicle approval applications, the NHVR expects it will have approved around 1800 PBS combinations in 2019. At present they are on track to reach 10,000 PBS combinations in operation by Christmas. A change to many of the
“The system is now flexible enough that should a customer want to develop a new PBS concept or change an existing PBS design, they will no longer have to wait up to eight weeks.” Les Bruzsa National Heavy Vehicle Regulator Chief Engineer
NHVR’s internal processes helped make this significant PBS milestone possible according to Les. “It’s a huge workload for us, especially considering that the NHVR certified more than 700 individual vehicle units for PBS in 2019, but we’ve been able to respond to industry needs and we’ve been monitoring the response time. Around 60 per cent of those are approved on the same day or next day and 85 per cent within two business days,” he says. “So that means the industry doesn’t have to wait for the PBS Vehicle Approval when the vehicle is ready, as we go through the certification very quickly.” Poring over data, Les made a discovery while on a recent trip to South Africa, where he gave a series of presentations on PBS. Looking at proportional vehicles across PBS levels he was surprised to see that more than 95 per cent of PBS vehicles were approved in PBS Level 1 or PBS Level 2 categories, inside 30 metre overall lengths. “The majority of the vehicles are in the smaller PBS classes — three-axle truck and -four axle dog combinations that are approved with different mass limits, under Level 1 and Level 2,” he says. “That might indicate that we should be concentrating on the review of the Level 1 and Level 2 standards and how we address the technical issues related to the operation of these PBS vehicle classes.” According to Les 50 per cent of the PBS Level 1 and Level 2 combinations are truck and dogs, with another 30 per cent represented by B-doubles and 20 per cent A-doubles, which are gaining popularity among freight movers in different jurisdictions. Although PBS is often commonly associated with larger vehicles, in practice, the statistics prove, that it’s not the case. As a concept, PBS 2.0 is still very fluid according to Les. The reforms identified by the NHVR involve providing fleet interchangeability through a modular
