Victorian Transport Association chief executive Peter Anderson made the call as ABARES predicts Victoria's winter crop production will be the highest on record

ABARES predicts it'll increase by 27 per cent to 9.5 million tonnes.

Mr Anderson said trucks had been held up for up to 10 hours at the Geelong port, as operators tried to unload to waiting grain ships.

"There's been a grain ship tied up at the wharf in Geelong, every day for the past two months," Mr Anderson said.

"We knew this was coming, but we have restrictions on A-Doubles bringing grain into all the ports."

In Victoria, a High Productivity Freight Vehicle, or A-Double, is a heavy vehicle combination that exceeds 26 metres and/or has a GCM in excess of 68.5 tonnes.

ABARES said wheat production was estimated to have increased by 32 pc in 2020-21, to 4.8 mt, the highest on record.

Barley production was estimated to have increased 11pc to 2.8mt, while canola reached an estimated record high of 950,000t, a 46pc increase from 2019-20.

Mr Anderson said A-Doubles gave operators the opportunity to load, and move, multiple trailers as efficiently as possible.

"The A-B combinations are a lot more difficult and a lot more specialised, whereas an A-Double means I can have two trailers, joined together with a dolly," he said

"They have a better footprint,they are softer, they are lower impact on the road and a little bit longer - but the road authorities don't like them.

"They are running around the port, but we want them to be able to run up and down the Western Highway, up the Calder and the other major highways to service the major grain areas.

"We are not asking them to run around the city of Yarra, or Nillumbik, we want specific routes, into the port.

"What I would like to see, quickly, is A-Doubles being given a gazetted route for grain harvest only.

"We don't care who owns the trucks, whether its farmers, contractors, or whoever, but we need grain moved to market, as quickly as possible."

It comes at a time when it's been predicted rail will only be able to carry 30 per cent of the record crop, to port and other markets.

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Mr Anderson said normally Victoria produced about four million tonnes of grain, annually.

"Unfortunately the rail system has been unable to keep up with the demand and its capacity has been reduced by about 50 per cent," Mr Anderson said.

"The actual production has gone up by 25pc, which means we have five million tonnes to move to market."

Grain was now being held on-farm and would move, continually, until next season.

"The industry is being restricted from a transport perspective, and the people who are missing out are the people of Victoria, with the value of exports to our GDP."

He said he'd like to see a committee - made up of representatives from the industry, the Victorian Farmers Federation and government - established, to look at the issues the bumper harvest presented.

"We can co-ordinate our way of out if, if we get the parties sitting around the table," Mr Anderson said.

"We can't fix rail, overnight it's not a blame game, we are not trying to say someone has done something wrong, anywhere.

"We know rail can't meet capacity, for a number of reasons, those reasons will be sorted out by government, but right now we need to move the grain."

He said allowing A-Doubles, for the grain season, would not result in more trucks on the road.

"There is a bottleneck in the supply chain that is restricting us meeting not just the volumes of today, but the demands of yesterday."

"There aren't twice as many trucks on the road, they aren't going twice as fast and they aren't doing twice as many trips."

Mr Anderson said farmers were sitting on a bumper crop and couldn't get it to market.

Grain was now being held on-farm and would move, continually, until next season.

TGR Transport's Tom Allen, who has depots at Mortlake and Corio, said the problems at Geelong seemed to have eased, after what he said was a "perfect storm" caused a wait of four or five hours, for some of the trucks.

"There was a vessel in, trying to load wheat, there wasn't wheat available so the market drove the price up," Mr Allen said.

"Rather than delivering to a regional site, like Berrybank or Westmere, they were bypassing those sites and going directly to Geelong, to take advantage of the better price"

"All of a sudden people came from far and wide, to deliver wheat.

The cooler weather, over Christmas and New Year, had also slowed the harvest.

"There were also trains there at Geelong, at the time, which took out one of the delivery points."

Mr Allen said as harvest slowed, there would be fewer issues with waiting times.

But he said bigger trucks would be an advantage in shifting the crop.

"The processing time, per truck, at GrainCorp is very, very similar, regardless as to whether you are taking a single truck, carting 25 tonnes, or an A-Double that can cart 55tonnes," he said.

"You are looking at a matter of minutes, to unload an A-Double, compared to a single trailer."

Riordan Grains managing director Jim Riordan said the company expected to shift between 150,000 and 200,000 extra tonnes of harvest products in the first half of the year.

That meant about 30 extra loads a day to port, over normal years without exports, for six months, carrying 43t per load.

"In some cases, once permits and National Heavy Vehicle Regulator accreditation are supplied a few carriers are getting trucks to carry 85.5t of gross weight.," Mr Riordan said.

"This has been the case for a few years now, in some areas of Victoria in other industries.

"They are very specific routes and there is only limited access so far."

Mr Riordan said over the years to come, the industry would work with government to help create more routes and efficiency for all users.

"Less trucks are required to do the same task as drivers are more difficult to find,' he said.

A state government spokesman said Victoria was delivering an unprecedented investment in infrastructure across the state, including major upgrades to the rail freight network and road networks.

"We know how important rail freight is for farmers, freight operators and communities and we continue to push ahead with this vital work," the spokesman said.

"We are working with the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator to gazette additional pre-approved routes."

A-Doubles require permits to access the network.

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