Advantia works with ST Transport to improve productivity and safety of woodchip transport

Woodchip transport is now more productive and safer in South West Victoria and South East South Australia.

With approximately 2.6 million tonnes of hardwood woodchips exported from Victoria’s Port of Portland each year, and as the single biggest port for hardwood chip exports in the world, companies like ST Transport are leading the way to improve productivity and safety of woodchip transport in the region.

As access for High Productivity Freight Vehicles (HPFV) continues to improve in Australia, ST Transport has recently turned to Performance Based Standards (PBS) 33-metre A-Doubles to complement its existing fleet of 26-metre B-Doubles. Whilst A-Doubles provide increased productivity benefits, a unique requirement for Port of Portland is for multi-combination vehicles to unload via full vehicle tilt beds.

To ensure long-term A-Double utilisation opportunities were realised, Advantia worked closely with ST Transport to develop a design that incorporated woodchip tip-through features, as well as satisfying VicRoads A-Double reference vehicle requirements for network access. The benefit of designing the A-Double to comply with a published reference vehicle network, is that as the network grows, automatic access is available to operators with permit approval to the network up to 85.5-tonnes.

With ST Transport 33-metre A-Double now in operation the productivity benefits have seen a reduction in the number of B-Double trips to deliver the same freight task. For ST Transport this has meant their A-Double is able to deliver a 12.5-tonne increase in payload to a 26-metre B-Double. Therefore, for every 4 A-Double trips, 1 B-Double trip has been eliminated. Along with the productivity, amenity and environmental benefits of reduced truck trips, PBS A-Doubles are involved in significantly fewer crashes than Road-Train equivalent combinations[1].

Highlighting the benefits of increased access for HPFVs, the ST Transport A-Doubles have provided:

‘A significant lift in production on average loadings with a 20-percent reduction in truck cycles if we had the fleet of them across the board, which is a great saving on operating numbers and road cycles’ ST Transport

Have you been thinking about PBS or heavy vehicle access? Contact Advantia to discover opportunities for your business.

[1] https://www.ntc.gov.au/Media/Reports/(EE70D6AE-0895-3CE0-C3C4-6AEE88C7138F).pdf