I don't EVER take stock in shows like TodayTonight (TT) because they either 1) are trolls. Or 2) just have no idea of the real world.

Last night though, they raised another troll point (trolls are people who make statements to INCITE reactions) about banning freight trucks in Australian CBD's because of safety. This one stood out for me because ... well ... this is what I do for a living. I move freight in Brisbane's CBD. I move bulk pallets of freight.

If I had to write a report for every near miss we have in the CBD I'd be off the road every day by about 2pm. So, they have a point. What interests me though, is that the blame is being laid solely at the feet of the truckies. But sure, there are bad apples in every basket, but not everyone is.

The weird thing about vehicle licencing in Australia - and elsewhere - is that when you get your car licence there is NO education in courtesy for other vehicles. Not legal requirements, but courtesy.

When you see a truckie going off his head at someone in a loading zone this is because generally the amount of loading zones available are dwindling and private vehicles - and cabbies - taking up these spaces takes money out of a freight worker's pocket. Many work 'per-drop'. Ipods and mobile phones are the major cause of pedestrian 'near misses' as is ignorance of basic laws, and arrogance of people who 'can park and walk anywhere'.

TT forgot to mention how moving freight at night in the CBD would double the cost of items there. You would need to pay me more, and pay staff at businesses to accept freight after hours. This actually wouldn't bother me; it would be nice to get access to anywhere I want at MY convenience.

Brothers, best mate once me, drive drove trucks.
Some true clowns and idiots do/have too.
Not one how ever more uniformed than this story.
Loading zones point to just a millionth of the reasons we need trucks in town.
StG is right to wounder what drives such stupidity.
No trucks equals no shops, a hand trolly would be over worked bringing the thousands of tonnes of just fruit and veg in every night.
Foolishness is praising this mob.
It highlights this, every one has an opinion, but some are so uninformed, so silly and unworkable it is stunning that people get paid for them.
Who bought the matirial that made each building? horse and cart?

WOW! No-brainier. Lets do the maths, shall we.

1..Get rid of trucks = unemployment for all concerned + food disruption on a grand scale + No other viable cost affective measures = Mass strikes by the transport unions.

Again! One idea I thought of, was to tunnel small underground/ on top of ground conveyor systems where trucks can off load outside of city limits. All manner of goods can transported this way. Not all of course, but most.

Just a little infrastructural idea's can make more work......Well, is not that what we want?

Oh, thats right......where billions in debt.

Maybe some other time:)

Imagine........No trucks any-where in city limits.

Well how do we do it?

LEAP

Well firstly, one should clarify what the word 'truck' refers to, as smaller trucks are not the problem.

You see our governments see things often in the reverse of what we see them.

Take the Gateway bridge, for an example.

Now common sense would suggest that if trucks were allowed to use the bridge, either at no cost, or at worst, at the same rate as cars, then this would make a huge difference to the truck congestion in the CBD's.

However, what actually happens is the reverse, whereby they charge trucks 3, 4, even 10 times as much to use this bridge, largely due to the fact that much of our infrastructure is privately owned, or at least partially, so the shareholders need a return.

Reverse this type of thinking and you are on your way to solving a major part of the problem.

Well firstly, one should clarify what the word 'truck' refers to, as smaller trucks are not the problem.....Well, your quite right. The smaller trucks would be used to pick up the goods from the central dispatch station, then be delivered. Thats less congestion, less emissions, and over-all.....a much tidier all,s happy situation.

Well, maybe not all's happy when profits are effected.

I think its a case of PUT UP and SHUT UP:) if its not broken, dont fix it:)

But its nice to put up thoughts though:)

LEAP:)

Try delivering all freight to the major stores - Coles, Woolies, Myers - then include the bulk pallets of things we deliver to the hundreds of businesses in the CBD. You can't do it in the fleet trucks. If you did, you would need to at least triple the amount of trucks that go in there.

What they should do - for a start - is ban private vehicles from George Street, Turbot Street, Wharf Street, and Alice Street and everywhere inside there. That'll open up more loading zones and there would be less 'jostling' for parking. That would equal less movement of traffic.

Try delivering all freight to the major stores - Coles, Woolies, Myers - then include the bulk pallets of things we deliver to the hundreds of businesses in the CBD.

"You can't do it in the fleet trucks. If you did, you would need to at least triple the amount of trucks that go in there."

Smaller trucks can only be a better solution to larger one's, I think.

Thats just the point I was making STG. See, on one side, the population is rising and on the other, easier solutions excludes the need for workers. You cant have your cake and eat it. So technologies, robotic labour, shows the way for a smaller population, not a large one. We may have to re-think the whole plan.

Since mankind has found the new play thing called "technologies" less and less we need the use for human-labour, and yet Australia still at the easy way is the best way.......I dont think so. Population and Technologies will need to balance in order for the two to integrate successfully for the needs of the future.

I would prefer the triple amount needed, that way jobs and lives can continue on there merry way. Make it all automatic just to save a buck, and the great Australian dream just fades away.

Again....Smaller and smarter is the ticket.

Trucks will always be needed, well into the 2070's and perhaps beyond.
The only way to remove them, is with anti-gravity technologies.....but I think that will be some time away:)

Make more work, not less......I know it sounds like going back in time, but what other choice do we have.

LEAP

During the very tragic Canberra bush fires, a crew sat in my home packed and ready to go to help.
I had a few radios for them.
One said we should dig a trench around Canberra and fill it with water.
Yep great idea,it would cost about 60 billion take twenty years and have a nice pile of ashes in the middle,to remind us why we did it.
Take the trucks out of the city.
Lets not wait for levitation, get superman in now.
Hang on, oh yes truck and trailers, B double, weighs 20 tonnes, load about double?
Let get the Utes in about 300 say, thousand that is.
Cole's and Woolworth's need many trucks every night.
Milk takes a night time fleet.
We can dig under ground tunnels.
I about 50 years under construction at about 5 times this country's gross annual income.
Or maybe just build all new roads one lane wider for trucks only.
Look its a silly idea but why not ban cars, make public transport work?
Not so silly.

The central BUSINESS district is just that. It has a large concentration of people that require transport and supplies that need trucks. If anything, small cars should be restricted.

Heavy trucks are not the problem, it's the timing that is the problem. Better use of trucks is perhaps the answer.

But, like anything, an increase in costs means the consumer pays more or the business goes broke.

Who's going to accept freight from each privately owned shop/business after hours?

"Uh, we'll be there sometime between 6pm and Midnight..."

For what we do, each drop can have a series of issues and some stuff takes priority over other stuff. So each business has to pay someone to sit and wait. Much of what we take goes straight into the back room of the business. It's interesting that many believe there's some sort 'underground' vastness of organization and warehousing in the city. There isn't, there are cupboards and under staff's work areas. There is no storage and there is no design for convenience of moving freight. Space in the city is used for making money, not sitting stagnant wasting space.

Why does there need to be private vehicles in the city? You can get access to any area within 500 meters from the outside streets.

I fully understand and agree with your views STG, Dad for many years was an owner truck driver on the road virtually seven days a week in the 70's-90's. If Dad these days was required to drive amidst 'every person on the roads interstate and in cities today' I reckon he'd go bananas!!

I drove into Melbourne a couple of years ago for the first time in years (outer actually) and drivers of vehicles were behaved shockingly from the moment I entered a left hand lane staying out of their way so they could overtake, to the moment of my destination. EVERY second vehicle tailgated me (interstate plates probably did not assist), truck drivers left me alone for the most part and not having passengers in the back seat was unconcerned. I felt like holding up a video camera or mobile camera (joshing guys) taping the mexican tailgaters and weavers. Apols for the labelling to the 'lawful, non-tailgating, bullying Victorians residing in the outer suburbs LOL!

Give me travelling to country Victoria, Sydney, Adelaide, Canberra or Perth anyday - yet Melbourne outer suburbs - I wont bother driving in again!

StGeo, I would be interested in your thoughts on the future of road freight transport.
Visualise this scenario;
Interstate road freight is banned and not economic anyway.
All long distance freight, say to 150 km and above banned.
All long distance freight must go by rail or sea.
Air freight no longer operating.
All the old country branch rail lines are re-established.
Diesel is around $10 per litre with CNG not readily available and expensive.
Local farmers markets for vegetables etc are in every suburb.
The local suburban shopping centre is revitalised.

How would you reorganise the distribution of goods ?

Bazz may I as an 11 year old kid, one of the rare times I took an interest in school was a debate.
Rail vs road.
Rail lines can not go in to every street every city every industrial area.
We can not ever afford light rail to do it or any such thing.
Trucks or a 22nd century version of them,mobile/flexible transport system will always be in use.
Rail freight is distributed by trucks, air freight too.
I still think banning the cars is the best way around this.
StG is right, only 24 hour endeavors can load or unload trucks at night.
Just look at only the Sydney city markets food that is,the number of trucks would stun you.

Mostly I agree with you Belly.
This is the way I see it but I did not want to prompt StGeo.

In the "old days", take Sydney for example, every railway station had
a parcel office and major stations had a goods shed.
Electric parcel vans ran all around the electricified rail network
basically doing what couriers do now, except the addressee went to
his local station to pick up his parcel.

With the intermodel terminals now beig built, two or three in Sydney
I think, containers are loaded and unloaded automatically truck to train.
For smaller loads than containers, fork lifts etc can be used.
Trucks, small and larger could pick up and deliver locally over for
arguments sake 20 to 50 kms. The couriers we now have could work
between rail parcel offices and goods sheds and the addressee in that
local area. The same in every town.
Because of the smaller distances travelled the couriers could use
electric vans such as the Renault van.

Something along this scheme will come about, hopefully it will happen
gradually as fuel gets more expensive. That way the cost will not be
unbearable. However, if we get stuck with a crash and burn situation
the cost will be enormous just alone in unusable semitrailer trucks.

Bit of history. In colonial times they prohibited the entry of large bullock wagons into Sydney and they had a 'terminal' at Liverpool, maybe others as well. so what has changed?

I read somewhere that in China deliveries are made at night and the goods left on footpath, outside shop, which the owner brings in next morning. Imagine that happening here! Not much left by morning.

What does happen in other large cities around the world? Deliveries have to be made.

Traffic conjestion has built up in more recent times because all the young girls now drive cars. Maybe we should go back to only blokes drive and they could then pick the girls up. Bench seats in cars were better too, the girls sat closer.

All true blokes and funny Banjo,but the population of just Sydney is well past 2 million.
Like every city
Large trucks for large loads the only way if fuel cost $100 a liter it will be cheaper than any other solution.
Having been in those trucks loading or unloading, far back in a long line at darling harbor goods line, the rail head,it is a lot of trucks every day.
And Markets,night time loads arriving from as far away as Bundaberg QLD and for all I know further,one day without them and we go without some foods.
Ask why some want to ban trucks, and why we can not in fact Ban every non commercial Vehicles instead, no congestion costs down cleaner city's.

I've got zero issues with reorganizing how things are done. Can't wait till we have to function better as a species, let alone in a business sense.

How will we do it in the future? I have no idea. Depends on transport technology first I reckon. I think for us to CHANGE - I mean, totally rethink - we'd need to really make some big decisions in how we lay out our cities. Currently, I can't see how it'll change because we've designed it with one train - so to speak - of thought. That is, move freight with the wheel. Its been that way since Moses was a cowboy and how our cities have been laid out are done with that in mind.

The vast majority of buildings are isolated from each other. That makes moving freight with the entire CBD in mind almost impossible in its current form. The only solution I could see after having just finished work would be a VAST network under these areas that service the entire region where basically all buildings are serviced underneath. Problem is, to recoup the cost of setting that up would take a hundred years.

Maybe, we could remove private vehicles from these areas between say, 9:30am and 3:30pm ... or something. That would allow me to do my job virtually hassle free.

Belly,
There was a serious part to my post as well.

What do they do in far larger cities than Sydney?

Glad I live rural, no traffic much but increasing. I past 8 vehicles on way to town last week. That is a record. Do not know why Sydney radios have traffic reports, I can't see any problems.

Comon, other places work around it, don't they?

StGeo & others,
Tunneling underground would be virtually impossible in
the CBD now with all the water, electricity, communications tunnels
sewage and railways that are there now that run every which way down there.

When I said interstate transport being banned, I am visualising that
rationing would be in place and not sufficient fuel would be allowed
for such journeys. There would be a big reduction in car traffic also.

As it is now, there is talk of either banning cars in the CBD or having
a zone system like in London with a zone charge.

All these things are what we pay politicians to plan for but they
simply do not do the job for which they are paid.