Cutting the frontier tape
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International road transport grows so quickly that it is easy to overlook the frontier frustrations which lie behind those fat annual TIR carnet statistics. Drivers have their own ways of beating the delays by knowing the particular "susceptibilities" of individual frontier posts and sometimes gong many kilometres out of their way to get clearance at a post they know to be speedy.
But human frailties are less of a barrier to swift crossborder transport than the shortcomings of officialdom. The laudable intentions of the TIR scheme are undermined by countries whose custom posts are inefficient or too few in number, who do not provide enough inland clearance depots or whose administrative procedures are a relic of a horse-drawn age. There is also a need to make the payment of customs dues a standard, simple procedure.
These and other failings were aired at the IRU congress in Portugal this week by the RHA's director-general, who was introducing a resolution calling for better TIR facilities and a fairer deal for national associations from the customs authorities. If Europe's other road transport associations value their members' future prosperity they will swing heavy support behind this resolution. The Continental railways, and BR too, are primed to offer express freight services across the length and breadth of Western Europe: frontier fumbling must not be allowed to put road freight into the same league as the airlines, where one may spend as much time clearing each end of the journey as is spent on the flight itself.
Constant pressure for improvements is, in any case, something which the 'trade associations owe their members: never forgetting that, because association membership is the only way to enjoy the benefits of the TIR scheme, some companies join for this reason alone, not because they need the domestic services.