NSW increases road freight access in flood-impacted regions

Higher priority vehicles are now getting increased access on the NSW road network to ensure freight operators can keep supplying to flood-impacted areas.

Deputy Premier and Minister responsible for Disaster Recovery John Barilaro said the priority right now is to ensure roads are accessible, places are safe for people to return, and businesses can continue to operate.

“The 2019/20 bushfires and the clean-up and recovery efforts that followed taught us a great deal, and having worked on bushfire recovery for the past 15 months, I am taking that experience and those lessons with me to steer recovery following these extreme floods,” Barilaro said.

“The flooding has impacted a number of our rail lines and we are working to get them back up and running as soon as possible. In the interim, we are ensuring we can move essential goods by road in safe modern transport vehicles.”

Minister for Regional Transport and Roads Paul Toole said flooding had significantly impacted the movement of freight across the State, preventing operations along a number of rail lines and disrupting access through multiple north-south road corridors.

“Currently, many roads are only available to 26 metre B-Double heavy vehicles but under the changes, we are opening up a new access network to Higher Productivity Vehicles that meet Performance Based Standard level 2B on the State managed road network,” Toole said.

“This means safer, modern vehicles up to 30 metres long fitted with telematics that can carry up to 33 per cent more than a 26 metre B Double, meaning we can get more essential supplies in faster.”

A map of the roads open to Performance Based Standard Tier 1 level 2B vehicles is available on the Transport for NSW Restricted Access Vehicle mapping site.

Conditional access on the M1 motorway will be considered for modular B Triple road trains up to 35 metres long, with telematics and advanced safety technologies to move more freight along the north south route. This area is still heavily affected by the recent flooding.