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YOU’RE about to see more B-triple trucks on the Hume Highway.
The 36.5-metre rigs, longer than a blue whale, are now sharing the road between Wodonga and Melbourne after a decade of trials.
And after Wednesday’s completion of the Holbrook bypass the way is clear for the trucks — 10 metres longer than B-doubles — to do the full trip from Melbourne to Sydney.
The move to three trailers from two comes as the industry looks for efficiency gains.
The Victorian Minister for Roads, Terry Mulder, announced this year that the giants of the road would greatly improve productivity.
He said with the amount of freight set to double within a few years, efficiency gains were imperative.
Four B-triples can carry the same loads as six B-doubles.
PowerTorque magazine editor Chris Mullett visited the Border yesterday to showcase the future of the trucking industry at Barnawartha’s DECA training centre.
“It enables us to show the extra length, the extra safety and the extra efficiency of modern vehicles,” he said.
“It’s a big technology change. Basically, it's the future of Australian trucking.
“We are short of drivers and if we can carry more freight in safer vehicles with less equipment, it’s a plus for the motorways and freeways.”
Mr Mullett said freight would be transferred to smaller trucks on the fringes of big cities for distribution.
“The long distance stuff will make it so much more efficient with one truck and one driver, rather than two,” he said.
Mr Mullett said trials for a decade between Geelong and Campbellfield had proved the trucks did a great job.
The B-triples will have a maximum speed of 90 km/h.
Driver courses are available at Barnawartha.