Australian heavy vehicle drivers will be able to record their work and rest hours instantly from December 1 with the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator approving the first Electronic Work Diaries.
An EWD is an electronic recording system used to record the work and rest times of a driver and will be offered as a voluntary alternative to the Written Work Diary.
Beaudesert truck driver Keith Gee said he would be making the transition from paper to electronic work diaries.
"Absolutely, 100 per cent, this is going to be a massive time saver," he said.
"This is a really positive move by the government. It's a breath of fresh air and I can't wait to get started
"This could save me up to an hour a day in paperwork."
A spokeswoman for Bondwood Transport at Jimboomba said the company would not be using the EWDs.
"We need to provide consignment notes for all our deliveries, so we still need paper and we still need to print it," she said.
Transport Minister Michael McCormack said the rollout of EWDs would mean drivers could put down the pen, paper and ruler when recording work and rest hours.
Mr McCormack said Australian companies Step Global and Teletrac Navman had met strict requirements to provide an alternative to a Written Work Diary.
"The work diary has been a requirement for fatigue-related heavy vehicles for more than half a century, and today more than 200,000 written work diaries are used by heavy vehicle drivers each year," he said.
"This announcement will cut this red tape enabling drivers to record their work and rest hours by simply pressing a button, rather than spending time ruling lines and counting multiple time periods on multiple pieces of paper."
Assistant Transport Minister Scott Buchholz said both companies were already technology partners with a number of heavy vehicle operators, which should see a broad roll out across industry.
"This approval gives the providers the green light to work with their partners to use their products as an approved fatigue management system," he said. "We know both technology companies have a number of transport and logistics operators ready and eager to adopt the technology and we should see a good uptake across the industry.
"This is a historic moment for Australia's heavy vehicle industry and has the potential to make the work environments of our drivers safer and improve productivity for the industry."
NHVR chairman Duncan Gay said the industry was managing 60 million pages of work diary paper per year.
"This equates to 14 B-Double loads of red tape," he said.
"Today's announcement will enable companies and drivers to more effectively focus on managing their fatigue, rather than managing the book - which is an important step forward in delivering improved fatigue safety outcomes. As well as reducing time checking written work records on the side of the road, it also delivers huge cost and time savings for heavy vehicle businesses with many operators spending multiple days every week reconciling the written work book."