Engineers hold the energy key
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ENGINEERS can make a positive contribution to energy saving by their vehicle design and engine performance as well as by deciding on tyres, fuels, axles and loadings.
That was the message from National Freight Corporation chairman Sir Dan Pettit when he spoke at the annual dinner of the Institute of Road Transport Engineers South Wales centre last week.
He said that while the lorry was the key to the good life for ordinary people, it brought • with it the problems of noise, fumes, intrusion, damage, accidents and congestion. But he said that negative restraints on heavy vehicles could not be accepted as the way to combat the problems. Managers and engineers had to co-operate with manufacturers and planners to find ways of reducing the nuisance and damage.
On the EEC he commented: "It is right and proper that we should apply a road transport engineering perspective to the issues which membership of that community involves, issues relating to infrastructure, to technologies, to working conditions, to Construction and Use regulations, to licensing and conditions of entry."
Sir Dan told the Institute that the NFC had bought 2,261 vehicles in the past year which with the associated equipment cost £13.8m.
"You will appreciate that NFC companies thus have a sizeable task in research and development to specification of their various fleets and in the purchase and maintenance of them," he said.
Technical matters were vital to the operating companies and as vehicles and equipment became more sophisticated it all called-for high engineering standards, if a business was to keep its place at the head of the transport and distribution field.