Converting to electric cars is going to take time. With transport being Australia’s fastest-growing source of emissions, action on all fronts – road, rail, sea and aviation – is needed.
Trucks line up to load and unload at the Port of Los Angeles in Long Beach, California.
Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
As California goes on regulating air pollution, other states often follow – including the Golden State’s ambitious goals for cleaning up emissions from trucking.
Amazon workers sort packages for delivery on East 14th Street in New York City, July 12, 2022.
Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
The rise of e-commerce means billions of packages are delivered in the US each year. That creates traffic and pollution, but urban freight researchers are finding better way to get goods to customers.
Air pollution from traffic causes the deaths of thousands of Australians. A swift transition to electric vehicles will save lives – and save households and businesses money in the long run.
Truckers and supporters gather in Delta, B.C. on Jan. 23 before departing on a cross-country convoy that arrived in Ottawa five days later.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck
The movie franchise ‘Mad Max’ contains a cautionary tale about our over-reliance on fuel for vehicles. This dependence has been highlighted by the ‘freedom convoy’ and its relationships with fuel.
Large numbers of trucks not only add to road construction and maintenance bills, they also make our roads less safe and more congested and add to noise and air pollution.
Ford calls its all-electric F-150 Lightning “the truck of the future.”
Ford
Ford’s electric F-150 pickup won’t roll off assembly lines until early 2022, but the company has received thousands of preorders already for a vehicle aimed at the mass market, not eco-buyers.
Efficient shipping and storage could prevent a lot of wasted vaccines.
AP Photo/Morry Gash, Pool
COVID-19 vaccines have very specific storage requirements that make shipping a difficult task. Two ideas – fulfillment centers and cross-docking – could help overcome some distribution challenges.
The cold supply chain keeps vaccines fresh during distribution, but the current system is nowhere near large enough to distribute the billions of COVID-19 vaccines that the world needs.
A traffic jam on a busy highway near Vancouver, B.C.
(Shutterstock)
Rising e-commerce means more delivery trucks and urban gridlock. Lockers at transit centers, where carriers can leave packages for people who live or work nearby, are a potential solution.
More than half of all U.S. truck drivers exceed the federal limit of 60 hours per week.
5m3photos/shutterstock.com
Most road fatalities involving heavy vehicles are caused by the other party, not the truck driver. We need to educate road users on how to be safer around trucks.
Ford has doubled down on its best-selling pickup trucks.
AP Photo/Paul Sancya
Elon Musk’s new Semi has platooning capability - where multiple trucks commute in a line with a single driver in the lead vehicle. But could it work in Australia?
A fully loaded semitrailer can cause 10,000 times more damage to roads than a family car.
AAP Image/Dan Himbrechts
Australia should follow the lead of other nations like New Zealand and Switzerland and increase the charges for heavy vehicles on roads, proportionate to the amount of wear and tear they cause.
Owner operator truckers argue that the pay order from the Road Safety Renumeration Tribunal is pricing them out of the market.
Dan Peled/AAP
If the federal government abolishes the Road Safety Renumeration Tribunal, a minimum pay to improve the safety of truckers is less likely to ever be addressed.
Was Anthony Albanese right about truck driver pay and safety?
AAP Image/Joel Carrett
Was Shadow Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, Anthony Albanese, right to say that evidence shows better pay for truck drivers will improve safety?