Performance-based standards (PBS) vehicles for transport in the agricultural sector

Abstract

The South African sugar industry spends in the order of R750 million per annum on sugarcane transport. Although rationalisation processes are in progress, innovative systems are needed to reduce these costs even further. The current fleet of haulage vehicles in South Africa complies with a set of prescriptive regulations which specify a number of parameters. However, it has been recognised that these regulations do not address a vehicle’s dynamic performance, and place a constraint on the innovative use of technology to develop new transport vehicles. The objectives of the Performance-Based Standards (PBS) philosophy are to utilise technology to reduce road damage, improve safety, increase payloads and reduce costs. To overcome the limitations of prescriptive legislation, is has been proposed that PBS regulations be introduced. With this system the criteria for design is that the vehicle should conform to a set of performance standards that will achieve the above objectives. This paper will discuss the standards proposed for use in South Africa, the demonstration projects to test these standards, and the way forward to introduce PBS to the sugar industry.