Truckies may be enjoying a newfound status as essential workers since COVID lockdowns – but that appreciation vanishes the minute a dirty big diesel truck thunders past on an urban road. People want the truck task to be done, but dislike the side-effects of pollution, noise, and carbon emissions. While those side-effects can’t be eliminated, they can be reduced.

People may wonder why more freight can’t go by rail – after all, governments have been spending a fortune on freight rail infrastructure.

But road and rail mostly do different jobs. Rail mainly carries bulk consignments of commodities such as coal, iron ore, and grain, heading to ports on fixed schedules. Road freight, on the other hand, encompasses all sorts of goods travelling from many origins to many destinations. Road and rail rarely compete for freight.

The typical Australian truck is older than its overseas counterpart, and that means it’s more polluting. Fourteen per cent of the Australian fleet is pre-1996, and these trucks emit 60 times the particulate matter of a new truck, and eight times the poisonous nitrogen oxides. Exhaust-pipe pollutants from trucks kill more than 400 Australians every year. Even when they’re not killing people, they’re causing respiratory illnesses and cancer, and impairing decision-making and cognitive functioning.

Hundreds of cities around the world handle this problem with low-emission zones. State governments should introduce low-emission zones in Sydney and Melbourne, prohibiting highly-polluting vehicles from densely-populated areas. The oldest trucks that are most harmful to health would still be allowed to operate outside the city bounds, but businesses operating in the city would need to upgrade to cleaner trucks, and could be offered government assistance to do so.