New rules that would have extended curfews for older, more-polluting trucks in Melbourne's inner-west, making residential streets cleaner, quieter and safer, have been shelved.

The move is a major blow to unlikely bedfellows who pitched the Australian-first initiative two years ago: the state's truck lobby group, the Victorian Transport Association, and the Maribyrnong Truck Action Group, comprising residents campaigning to remove trucks from residential streets.

The state government told the two organisations in a pre-Christmas meeting that it would not go ahead with the Smart Freight Initiative, which would have extended curfews for the dirtiest diesel-engine trucks on key residential streets surrounding the Port of Melbourne.

Under the proposed changes, trucks that were more than a decade old, and did not have a low-emission Euro 5 engine or better, would have faced longer curfews, starting at 6pm (instead of 8pm) and ending the following day at 8am (instead of 6am).