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straight trucks and truck-trailer combinations, so a study was ment, operate under consolidated revenue, whereby virtually
conducted to assess their dynamic performance, standards all income from all sources goes to the treasury, and the treas-
were drawn up, and the vehicle configurations were added to ury disburses funds to the various operating ministries, de-
the M.o.U. (40). The same process is now used by all provinces partments, agencies, and others in accordance with the fund-
when configurations are added to their regulations (45), (53), ing budgeted annually by the provincial treasurer for the
(54). It is also used by most provinces as part of the assessment particular entity. In this process, there is no relationship be-
of an application for a new configuration special permit. The tween the origin of any revenue and the allocation of fund-
outcome is that there is some uniformity in the dynamic per- ing. So, all income derived from all aspects of trucking goes
formance of vehicles, and it is now unlikely that a truly poorly entirely into general revenue, and expenditures on highways
performing vehicle, like some that arose in the 1970s in On- and other aspects of highway transportation come from gen-
tario, would get approval to operate. The staff of the provin- eral revenue, but there is no requirement or expectation that
cial departments are now very well aware of the important income from and expenditure on these accounts should bal-
parameters and can make good early judgments on whether ance. The same goes for any other accounts. There is one cur-
a vehicle is likely to be feasible or not. rent exception to this. A carrier operating under a special per-
A similar process was used in New Zealand from the early mit through Saskatchewan's Transportation Partnerships
1990s to develop weight and dimension standards and in Program must put part of its income from the special permit
Australia for a wide range of studies of vehicles that operate operation into a fund held by the province for improvements
under regulations or by special permit. Australia has now to the roads used by the carrier under the permit (55).
gone so far as to codify a process that allows vehicles outside It has been a source of concern to some that the federal
regulated limits to operate if they are certified to meet speci- government has considerable income from fuel taxes, but
fied performance standards by a third-party assessor (66). spends very little on highway transportation, in part be-
cause the highway networks fall under provincial jurisdic-
tion. The federal government has virtually no roads under
3.2.3.2 Implications for Trailer Manufacturers
its jurisdiction but it does fund, or partially funds, various
When Ontario first began to consider adoption of the transportation related projects and programs. In general,
M.o.U., an immediate outcome would have been the intro- the fuel tax portion collected by the federal government
duction of 16.20-m (53-ft) semitrailers. These trailers were al- goes to general revenue for the operations and programs of
ready widely used in the United States, and U.S. carriers with the federal government.
these semitrailers would have gained an immediate advantage Cost recovery was not an issue for the provinces through this
in cross-border service. Carriers with a current order for process, as the departments of transportation do not have the
14.65-m (48-ft) semitrailers either cancelled the order, or put means to impose fees or taxes. Under consolidated revenue,
it on hold pending the change so that it could be converted to even if additional taxes on trucking had been introduced, the
16.20-m semitrailers. Three significant manufacturers who provincial departments of transportation would not have had
primarily produced van trailers suddenly lost almost their en- any means to capture those funds, and would have had no
tire order books, rapidly went into bankruptcy, and closed authority to channel them into highway programs.
their plants. As the difficulty worsened, Ontario finally agreed
to issue a limited number of permits to allow 16.20-m (53-ft)
3.2.5 Changes in Compliance
semitrailers and 25.0-m (82-ft) B-trains to operate while the
and Enforcement
change was made. By 1994, when it became clear that it was un-
tenable to restrict 16.20-m (53-ft) semitrailers, the Ministry of When the M.o.U. was agreed upon, a tridem axle group, con-
Transportation announced it would change the law to allow sisting of three equally spaced load sharing axles, was not legal
16.20-m (53-ft) semitrailers and 25.0-m (82-ft) B-trains, and in any of the four western provinces. Truck inspection stations
also announced it would issue permits for new vehicles imme- in these provinces were generally fitted with a short platform
diately. Manufacturers did not face a wave of cancelled orders, scale used to weigh a single or tandem axle, by moving each axle
and many existing orders were converted from 14.65- to group successively onto the scale, weighing it, and then sum-
16.20-m (48- to 53-ft) semitrailers. ming the axle group weights to obtain the gross weight. The tri-
dem axle spread was longer than most of the platform scales,
and trials quickly determined that the split-weighing of tridem
3.2.4 Cost Recovery
axle groups did not produce a reliable result. It was therefore
There has been little if any direct cost recovery from any of necessary to replace the scale at those inspection stations, where
the changes in vehicle size and weight made in Canada. All the platform was so short that it could not weigh a tridem axle
provincial governments in Canada, and the federal govern- group, with a spread of 3.66 m (144 in.).
