The Truck Industry Council (TIC), the peak industry body for Australian Truck Manufacturers, has announced it will be hosting a major transport symposium in Sydney this October with the aim of addressing the challenges and opportunities an expanded urban freight task will bring to our day to day living.

The Moving Urban Freight Symposium will be held at the Novotel Sydney Olympic Park on October 21 and 22 and will feature key international speakers who have tackled and developed solutions for major urban freight problems in overseas cities including London and Los Angeles.

Urban freight accounts for approximately 75 percent of all freight movement and is rapidly increasing with forecasts by the Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics suggesting an increase of 80 percent by 2020.

Chief executive officer for TIC Tony McMullan says that with Australia’s standard of living being dependent on an effective distribution channel and the fact that trucks are the principal mode of transport for the distribution of goods, issues facing this vital sector of society need to be addressed.

“The national freight task will double over the next 15 years and the impact of this growth will be particularly felt in our cities where the use of road freight will continue to dominate while at the same time having to cope with an expected 40 percent increase in passenger vehicle traffic by 2020.”

McMullan says industry, government and truck manufacturers need to work together to formulate ways of addressing these challenges now so we will be prepared to cope with the increased task in years to come and that is what this symposium will help to facilitate.

The opening address of the Symposium will be delivered by the Executive Director of National Transport Strategy for the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government, Leslie Riggs who will outline the main challenges Australia faces as the urban freight task grows and the processes underway to address them.

Other speakers during the symposium will include leading academics such as Professor Geoffrey Blamey, Dr Susan Dann, who will detail the findings of research conducted on the perception of trucks, key executives from truck manufacturers, senior public servants involved in both transport policy and infrastructure as well as the Secretary of Federal Treasury Dr Ken Henry and leading transport operator Linfox.

McMullan says other key issues they will deal with at the symposium include making traffic flow management more effective, minimising the impact of emissions on the environment beyond current truck engine standards, identifying solutions that have met with success in other countries and how government and truck manufacturers can work together on these and other issues such as future truck design.

As an added feature to the symposium delegates will be able to inspect a display of future truck technology highlighting innovations in the areas of vehicle emissions, safety and noise control.

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