The project aims to develop a framework of practical measures to address issues relating to overloading and load balancing of heavy vehicles in select APEC economies, in particular in Papua New Guinea; Indonesia; Malaysia; Philippines; Thailand and Viet Nam.
An APEC study in 2011 estimated that 420,000 deaths were caused by heavy vehicle accidents, with contributing factors including: human/business factors; vehicle overloading and load balancing; poor vehicle road worthiness; infrastructure deficiencies; and inadequate legislation and regulation.
The project was endorsed by the 42th APEC Transportation Working Group meeting in Papua New Guinea in April 2016. A workshop is planned for the first half of 2017 to develop a regulatory framework toolkit to enable developing economies to implement measures to reduce the impact of high mass vehicles on road safety, transport sector productivity and road infrastructure depreciation.
These measures will include regulatory, educational, and technology-based solutions to achieve improved compliance with vehicle mass limits, safety regulations and road use requirements.