Road Freight NSW chief executive Simon O’Hara said the shortage of heavy vehicle parking bays has become one of the greatest challenges facing the industry, and the effects were being felt across the supply chain.
He said key factors fuelling demand include industry regulations requiring drivers to abide by strict driving hours and rest periods, along with a rise in owner-operator heavy vehicles that lack access to on-site parking afforded to heavy vehicles operated by larger freight and logistics companies.
The Sydney Dragway is among sites being considered for overnight truck parking.Credit: Nick Moir
“Because of the decades of underinvestment to address the parking shortage, drivers are spending huge amounts of time trying to find somewhere to park, and that’s having an impact on operating costs and efficiencies,” O’Hara said.
Truck driver Jeffrey Johnston, owner of Johnstons Transport based in Marrickville, said the shortage of truck bays in inner Sydney had been a perennial problem.
“There’s also been an increase in trucks required for the construction sector and big infrastructure projects, and they’re having to navigate narrow streets with very few sites where they can safely park after delivering loads,” he said.
While NSW road laws prohibit trucks weighing more than 4.5 tonnes or measuring longer than 7.5 metres from parking in built-up areas for longer than one hour, Fairfield Mayor Frank Carbone said many drivers were “willing to cop” the $114 fine rather than pay for private parking.
He said that fining illegally parked trucks was “challenging” for councils to enforce as rangers were required to “go out at night, mark the tyres of trucks, then come back to fine them”.
Trucks parked on the streets in the Fairfield Council area.Credit:
The calls for a solution follow a NSW parliamentary inquiry into the heavy vehicle sector last year that found a “significant gap between the number of rest areas currently available” in NSW to ensure heavy vehicle drivers can have spaces to safely park, check loads and effectively manage fatigue.
The NSW government, in its response to the inquiry, said it was working with the federal government to develop a dedicated heavy vehicle rest area at Eastern Creek, adding that it was “committed to working with the road freight industry to improve the capacity and design of heavy vehicle rest areas across the state”.
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In other parts of Sydney, the Bronte Resident Precinct community group has called on Waverley Council to join forces with other local government bodies to lobby the NSW government for increased penalties for trucks illegally parked in built-up areas.
Meanwhile, Cumberland Council will release a report in November outlining potential locations for trucks to park at night to solve a shortage of spaces in that local government area.
The NSW parliamentary inquiry also called for new regulations requiring industrial developments to provide a dedicated percentage of land for overnight truck parking, but the NSW government in its response said those regulations “would be challenging and costly to implement”.
