Major national transport insurer NTI has announced that along with the National Road Safety Partnership Program a new collaborative partnership has been formed called NTARC 2.0.
NTI says that for more than two decades, the National Truck Accident Research Centre (NTARC) Major Accident Report has provided an independent snapshot for industry and policy makers based on their claims data.
As a leading provider of insurance for the Australian heavy vehicle transport sector NTI says that this provides it with a unique market position which is used to produce the NTARC report, saying that it informs the entire heavy vehicle industry with better information.
The NTARC report has, since its establishment, continuously evolved and over the past five years, it has annually provided deep industry insight.
According to NTI, the NTARC 2.0 partnership represents an evolutionary step for the report – looking beyond the annual reporting on incidents, to a broadening of its reach, and development of supporting resources and deeper insights on heavy vehicle incidents through the partnership.
The Insurance company says that the new iteration of the NTARC report will be developed in collaboration through NRSPP’s partnership host, the Monash University Accident Research Centre (MUARC) – and will involve direct sponsorship funding of the report and the in kind secondment of NTI’s transport research manager, Adam Gibson to the partnership.
Gibson is the current author of the NTARC reports and is the lead on NTI’s dairy tanker safety program – a national crash reduction initiative.
Gibson will take an active role in mentoring the MUARC research team who will take on the role of evolving the report.
The new partnership will open the door for an important new research theme for MUARC and for other potential research institutions to draw on the NTI incident data. The research initiative will be approved, delivered and governed through the NRSPP and a newly created Research Governance Council.
“The new NTARC 2.0 partnership represents an exciting opportunity to improve safety in the heavy vehicle sector; providing deeper insights on trends identified within the incident data and expanding the Report’s reach and impact,” said the NRSPP independent chair, emeritus professor Jude Charlton.
“This new partnership with NTI is industry leadership at its best, as we like to say there is no competitive advantage in road safety, it’s a shared advantage that we achieve together,” said Charlton.
“Our aim with NTARC 2.0 will be delivering greater insights to drive policy and research but also enhance its industry reach and impact”.
“For NTI, NTARC is a point of pride as we know how much the transport industry and government draw on it,” said Chris Hogarty, NTI’s executive general manager – strategy and supply chain.
“Our aim is for NTARC to continuously evolve, to keep it relevant, independent, and its insights improving safety within the heavy vehicle sector.”
“NTI looks forward to partnering with NRSPP in driving the NTARC 2.0 reach and supporting resources, and with MUARC’s inclusion we hope to attract new leading researchers into the sector as they analyse the safety of the transport sector through our data,” said Chris.
“By also including Adam, he will be able to provide the practical guidance for researchers in truly understanding the data and what it means.”
The new partnership will release the next NTARC report in April 2024.
“To support and expand the reach of NTARC, the partnership will also generate new resources and insights for industry and government to draw on,” said Charlton.
“We want to start a continuing conversation on safety within the transport sector, anchored around NTARC 2.0,” he concluded.
