Industry and Road Managers alike have spoken and the NHVR has listened!

Our customers have been asking for a national mapping solution for the heavy vehicle industry and an improved route planning experience.  In response, the NHVR established the National Spatial Program (NSP) in 2020.  The program is proactively investing in innovative ways to improve our spatial services and mapping products, as well as building our data capture to enrich the information we can use in better ways to deliver and enhance our regulatory capability.

We are building a spatial platform to consolidate heavy vehicle networks (HVN) into a single, interactive map capable of accurately calculating routes based on vehicle, road and asset information.  The solution will provide Road Managers with a tool to manage networks and roads based on local conditions and asset information; a solution that will highlight approved routes and conditions against a segment of road, allowing the NHVR to determine valid, approved and safe routes.  Presently, this data is simply not available to our customers. The NSP also aims to improve turnaround times for industry in the access application process and delivery of approved access permits. Our solutions will also improve productivity and efficiency, contributing to the well-being and safety of our most precious resource, the drivers. 

What we're building is the first of its kind in Australia, if not the world. Our solution opens the door for significant productivity and economic benefits across the heavy vehicle supply chain.  The NSP aims to build reliable and accessible geospatial intelligence, that underpins our vision of a safe, efficient and productive heavy vehicle industry serving the needs of Australia.  The NSP will:

• Spatial Data Infrastructure: lay foundations of technology & data for organisational spatial capabilities
• Operations: build applications and tools that facilitate and improve operational efficiency
• Live: deliver timely and transparent access outcomes via geospatial intelligence for the NHVR, industry and stakeholders.

Program Overview

To date, each state and territory jurisdiction have been managing their own set of Heavy Vehicle Maps.  The NHVR essentially copies the maps onto the NHVR Route Planner each month. This process is time consuming, involves many sets of hands, often displays incorrect data, is not intelligent and is inefficient.  Over the past 12 months, the NHVR has been building the solutions in the back-end to address the abovementioned challenges and is poised to deliver the front-end interactive and intelligent solutions which will be rolled out to you all in 2022. The solutions include:

• using OpenStreetMap (OSM) mapping application as the base for our mapping platform, with the ability for anyone to contribute to enriching road and asset data much faster than before
• a self-service mapping system NHVR Maps for LGA and Jurisdictional Road Managers to update road ownership in near real time
• Upgrading the route planner with the Next Generation Route Planner helping industry more efficiently plot routes which will snap to HV networks, among many other intelligent routing parameters

The benefits of the NSP are

• The Next Generation Route Planner will be able to make changes to Heavy Vehicle Networks and road ownership which will seamlessly flow from road managers through to NHVR Maps and then into the Next Generation Route Planner. All this will be done without the need to go through state intermediaries or systems.
• As road ownership data will be easily updated, it should help reduce the number of applications for access, and consents will be directed to the correct road manager.
• Importantly, the Next Generation Route Planner will automatically route (snap) vehicles on to Heavy Vehicle Networks. Just one of our intelligent routing feature achievements.
• All our NHVR Heavy Vehicle Networks will over time be available (conflated) onto our one national mapping solution platform.

Pilot Phase commenced 1 November 2021

Pilot objective:  To test the flow of data from NHVR Maps → Route Planner → HV Applications to enable the following benefits:

1.  Reduce the number of incorrect road manager consent requests in the portal
2.  Build a powerful, correct and useful set of road management data spatially

3.  Create a new Routing Engine that will snap a route to a Heavy Vehicle Network and take into account turn restrictions, bigger roads and directions of travel.

4.  Create a self-service, fully integrated and spatial infrastructure for NHVR customers.

We have brought together a diverse set of champions to help with the pilot phase, as follows:

Program Customers

Click each section below to understand the impacts and benefits for each of the programs customers and stakeholders..

                             Local Government Associations                                              Industry Associations                                       

Upcoming Events

• Road Manager Digital and Spatial update on priorities and roadmap. Email spatial@nhvr.gov.au for information
  

• Next Generation Route Planner - Go-live earmarked for 31 March 2021

• Crane Industry Reference Group meeting - NHVR Maps and Next Generation Route Planner update on 9 March 2022)
  
  
• Expansion of pilot group to include additional industry operators and Road Managers.  Please email the team if you are interested spatial@nhvr.gov.au (coming soon)

Contact us in the Program Team

Contact us to talk more about the National Spatial Program;  why not ask for a demo of our innovative application, NHVR Maps or a sneak peak at the Next Generation Route Planner!

• Email us at spatial@nhvr.gov.au

• Use the Intercom Chat bubble in the NHVR Portal