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Bigger trucks smaller bills
Page 14
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A Dutch pilot scheme suggests longer road trains are the way to go if we really want to cut costs and congestion. Guy Sheppard reports.
A DUTCH experiment into the potential benefits and dangers of extending drawbar rigs by up to 6.5m (18ft) could encourage a relaxation in vehicle lengths around Europe.
Service trials with 25.25m (69ft)-long vehicles suggest they cut fuel costs by 15% and traffic by almost a third. The Dutch government has now indicated that it is likely to increase the permitted number of such vehicles on its roads from 20 to 200 over the next two years.
Don Armour, Freight Transport Association manager for international services, says the increase was disclosed at a meeting of North European transport ministers and trade associations in Copenhagen last month (September).
"The EC [European Commission] has looked at this idea in the past and been lukewarm," he explains. "This could start the ball rolling."
The existing permitted length of 18.75m (51 ft) is standard throughout the El ' although member states do have the option of increasing it.
Armour says the extensionwould be advantageous when carrying white goods because of their relatively large bulk and light weight. "I'm enough of a realist to accept that it's only likely to be granted on major trunk roads and between retail distribution centres."
Stan Robinson, MD of Stan Robinson Transport in Stafford, is one of the UK's few hauliers to actively promote the idea of extending vehicles, having funded trials with the automotive research organisation MIRA.
He says he would buy an eightwheeler rigid if the Dutch idea was adopted in the UK:"! would build a double-deck body on the back of it and then pull any of the trailers we have got now."