“The NZTA is working with industry to determine the best way to publish the ORS ratings, and when,” Celia Patrick, manager of the NZTA’s ‘access and use’ group tells DIESELtalk.
“The operator rating system (ORS) is working well, assisting the NZTA identify higher risk operators for targeted intervention and support. Operators themselves have also benefited by having information that has helped them make targeted investments to improve their safety-related performance.”
Under ORS, it is expected that greater transparency around safety will stimulate operators to achieve higher levels of safety and compliance, through imposition of ‘demerit’ points on failed compliance areas (as well as other key metrics such as accidents).
All of which will be factored into an overall rating.
Data has been collected since 2010, and under current NZTA rules, operators can publicise their ratings, once officially advised by the NZTA.
Currently, ratings remain shared only between fleet operators, NZTA and New Zealand Police. The NZTA’s original intention was to have already published operator ratings on a website but some operators objected to the way interim ratings were achieved – saying that more time was required before ratings should be published.
The NZTA is keen to provide assessment on how the entire sector performs, not just that of hauliers, and has delayed publication while it searches for a publicly visible way of reflecting that.
Discussion with operators and NZTA officials is still apparently on-going; one operator told DIESELtalk last week that while ORS is a great idea in principle, he believes it is “perhaps two to three years away” in terms of publishing ratings that accurately reflect an operator’s true compliance record.
This hasn’t stopped operators, typically those with maximum 5-star ratings from displaying the 5-star logos (e.g. www.hughestransport.co.nz). While these ratings remain on an interim basis (because the two-year data collection threshold has not been reached) operators are free to display their ratings.
The ORS will almost certainly drive safety standards up, because a publicly visible poor record of safety and compliance will not inspire confidence in using such operators, and business will migrate to those transport operators able to demonstrate higher levels of safety.
A senior logistics manager tells DIESELtalk that business brands do not like seeing media images of their goods spilled on the road, not just from a business interruption and safety perspective, but also from a reputation management viewpoint.
ORS, he believes, will go some way in providing companies with far greater transparency around the safety standards of their transport operator, and transparency around that will provide a clear marker between genuinely safety-oriented transporters, and those who are less so.
