Road Transport Award Reference

Who the award covers

The Road Transport and Distribution Award 2020 covers businesses in road transport and distribution — general freight, courier and parcel work, warehousing and distribution attached to transport operations, and related driving work. Note that long-distance operations have their own award (the Road Transport (Long Distance Operations) Award), with a different pay method built around kilometre rates. Working out which award applies to which runs is the first compliance question for many operators, and some businesses genuinely have employees under each.

Driver classifications

Drivers are classified by grade, driven mainly by the type and capacity of the vehicle:

• Lower grades — rigid vehicles of smaller capacity, couriers and van work.
• Middle grades — larger rigid vehicles and vehicles towing trailers.
• Higher grades — semi-trailers, B-doubles and road trains, stepping up with combination size.
• Non-driving grades — the award also classifies loaders, forklift operators, stores and distribution employees.

The grade follows the vehicle the employee is required to drive, so a driver who moves between vehicles may attract a higher rate for that work. Current rates for every grade are in the Fair Work Ombudsman's pay guide, updated after each Annual Wage Review.

Hours, shifts and penalties

• Ordinary hours and spread — the award sets the span of ordinary time; work outside it attracts penalties at the prescribed rates.
• Shiftwork — defined afternoon and night shift loadings for operations running around the clock.
• Overtime — at the award's multiples, with weekend and public holiday rates on top of the base structure.
• Casual provisions — casual loading plus minimum engagement periods per start.

Fatigue management sits alongside the award

Pay is only half the compliance picture. Drivers of heavy vehicles are also subject to fatigue management under the Heavy Vehicle National Law, administered by the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator (NHVR) in participating states — covering work and rest hours, work diaries, and record-keeping obligations that fall on the operator as well as the driver. Western Australia and the Northern Territory run their own schemes. Chain of responsibility laws mean schedulers, dispatchers and even customers can carry liability for fatigue breaches, so rosters need to satisfy both the award and the fatigue rules at the same time — they are separate regimes and complying with one doesn't cover the other.

Allowances to have on your radar

• Overnight/travel allowances — when a driver is required to rest away from home.
• Meal allowances — triggered by overtime in the circumstances the award defines.
• Industry-specific allowances — including for particular duties, cash handling and equipment, as listed in the award.
• Vehicle-related grade changes — as above, higher-capacity combinations mean higher classification, which functions like an allowance if it's occasional.

Take every amount from the current award or the Fair Work pay tools — transport allowances move regularly and stale figures compound quickly across a fleet.

Common compliance failures

• Flat daily or per-run rates that nobody reconciles against award entitlements for the hours actually worked.
• Wrong award — paying long-distance work under the distribution award or vice versa.
• Grade lag — a driver upgraded to bigger combinations without payroll following.
• Time records that don't match work diaries — a discrepancy between payroll hours and fatigue records is an audit flag for both regulators.

Transport operators tend to run lean offices, and payroll, rostering and fatigue records often sit in disconnected systems. Closing those gaps is back-office design work as much as HR work — see people and operations for how the pieces fit together.

General information only, and transport employment is a regulated space with real penalties — verify anything material against the award, the Fair Work Ombudsman and the NHVR before acting on it.