Big truck or small truck?
June 1st 2011 The Government is approaching the conclusion of a consultation exercise on the possibility of allowing longer lorries. It’s all a question of scale says Geoff Dossetter.
The size and weight of lorries on UK roads has been a contentious issue for as long as most of us in the industry can remember. On the one hand most freight operators subscribe to the notion that economies of scale should apply to the movement of goods, in the same way that they apply to passenger transport. After all, people are, in effect, self loading freight. The logic says that loading large numbers of units, people, onto a single vehicle, a bus, makes great good sense.Why not then apply the same thinking to goods, and load large numbers of units, freight, onto a single vehicle, a lorry.
Of course, on the other hand, critics say that lorries are already too intrusive, too noisy, too smelly and too dangerous anyway, and that, goodness knows, they are big enough already. And that has always made the Government a little nervous of change.
As a long time supporter of the case for the heavier lorry I have to say that the anti argument is riddled with prejudice, ignorance and general nonsense. Not that I’m biased you understand. But the truth is that black smoke is a thing of the past, noise levels are well down, congestion is hardly the fault of goods vehicles, and the safety record improves every year.
When the post-war UK economy got going again in the 1950s the profile and distribution of goods and services changed. A contraction in the movement of heavyweight material, like coal and steel, over long distances, reduced the amount of rail freight carried out. Simultaneously, changes in manufacturing, retail, the service industries, and the import/export balance, together with the needs and demands of a consistently growing population over a wider geographical area, led to the development of larger distribution patterns lending themselves to increased lorry operation. This process was made further efficient by the growth of the motorway network.
In 1950 there were almost 439,000 lorries on UK roads. The same year there were less than two million cars. By 1967 the number of lorries had grown to 593,000 and cars to almost nine million.
With wisdom and foresight the maximum lorry weight grew from 24 tons to 32 tons, from 32.5 tonnes to 38 tonnes, and eventually from 38 tonnes to 44 tonnes where it rests today. The good news is that we now have just 440,000 lorries, almost the same as the 1950 figure. But, of course, they are now moving so much more freight over a far greater network. And, at the same time, we have seen the car population grow to almost 30 million now.
Quite simply, if we did not have heavier and longer vehicles than in the 1950s, then we would be absolutely swamped by countless numbers of smaller lorries – undoubtedly well in excess of a million. All of them trying to operate alongside those 30 million cars on a roads network that will be under great stress when the recession is finally over. And the cost implications of operating so many trucks are unthinkable.
The latest call for a further growth in the size and weight of lorries has come over the last ten years or so. The enlightened industry says that heavier and longer vehicles would improve operating capacity by loading more goods on to fewer vehicles resulting in a myriad of benefits.
It would mean a reduction in the fuel cost per tonne moved. It would mean fewer vehicles on the roads with the benefit of containing road congestion in a growth economy. It would mean less tailpipe emissions. It would mean less mileage and thus fewer accidents. It would reduce labour costs by virtue of the need for fewer drivers. It would benefit all of the population and all of the economy.
But people don’t much like lorries. Everybody wants what is on board the lorry – but few want to share the road with it. The average citizen would prefer it if goods arrived at his home or supermarket by some magical ‘beam-it-up’ process. Sadly it doesn’t work like that. And there has always been a vociferous anti-lorry stance from some supporters of the rail freight option.
The latest development is that the Government has rejected the prospect of heavier, and considerably longer, vehicles.However, it has mounted a consultation on the prospect of an increase in the length of trailers by 2.05m up to 18.75m. Transport Minister Mike Penning is looking for responses from across the industry before the consultation closes on 21 June.
Increasing the carrying capacity of HGVs is among the most dramatic means of reducing journeys and improving efficiency bringing benefits to both the economy and the environment.
Unfortunately successive governments have been over cautious in ensuring that policies designed to promote the efficiency of one mode of transport do not end up having an adverse impact on another. This attitude is so negative – why should opportunities to improve road freight operations be sacrificed in order to protect the interests of rail freight? Surely we need to seek the very best operating conditions for both modes, notwithstanding the effect on the other? An element of this caution in the DfT consultation surrounds the proposed costly standards of engineering which threaten to diminish the capacity benefits afforded by the increased payload of longer trailers.
And, on the one hand there is also a desire for evidence that the vehicles will actually be used, while on the other there is concern about the consequences of a substantial take-up! It seems to me that the answer is self evident. If the proposed new vehicles are attractive to operators then they will be taken up. If they are not, then they won’t be.
So let’s allow the market, the operator, and the customer decide. More articles from Handling & Storage Solutions: | 
