SALES BOOM
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• Few trailers, with some notable exceptions, could be described as glamorous — but the current boom in road haulage is being enjoyed literally off the backs of trailers, especially in the 38-tonne range.
It is possible to chart accurately the health of the UK truck market, thanks to the almost overwhelming amount of available statistical data based on registration figures, but carrying out the same exercise for the semi-trailer market in something of a black art.
The problem is not helped by the fact that trailers, unlike trucks and artics, are not registered from new. They have to wait for their first MOT before that happens. As a result, annual new trailer production levels can vary, depending on who you're talking to.
As there is no way of disproving a claim, each manufacturer tends to be bullish about its own annual production figures, while questioning those of its competitors.
York, for example, is currently claiming market, leadership in the UK semi-trailer markets, backed up by the fact that last year it built 3,200 trailers of all types. Not to he outdone, Crane Fruehauf (a company not normally keen on revealing its annual production figures) recently hit back, saying that it produced 4,200.
Amid all the claims and counterclaims, there are also the likes of Fraserburgh-based Gray and Adams, which continues to hold a major share of the UK reefer trailer market with a noticeable lack of self-congratulatory rhetoric.
For the record, industry observers are optimistically predicting that, barring any setbacks, production levels on new trailers in the UK could go as high as 13,500 in 1988.
Whatever the final figure, 1988 has already been a significant year for the trailer builders themselves. In January, Crane Fruehauf merged with four other European subsidiaries of the giant US Fruehauf Corporation to form the largest semi-trailer manufacturing group in Europe — called SESR — capable of building 16,000 trailers a year (30% of the total European semi-trailer market).
Then in March, Craven Tasker was sold by John Brown to Ballyvesey Holdings of Northern Ireland, which already owns Montracon Trailers.
Finally, last month it was revealed that York was being bought out of the Bunzl Group by its senior management.
The changes in the companies building trailers have been mirrored in the equipment they produce. Many operators, notably the large trailer rental companies, have an eye turned towards European harmonisation and ultimately 40 tonnes and are specifying air suspension and anti-lock braking as standard on all their new trailers.
The perceived effectiveness of air suspension in providing better load equalisation over conventional steel suspensions has not escaped the Government's notice. In February it declared it would circulate proposals to increase the permitted weight on each axle of a tri-axle semi-trailer from 7.5 tonnes to eight tonnes (to give a full 24-tonne bogie) "provided that air suspension, or other equivalent fluid suspensions are fitted".
This move is certainly a step in the right direction, in terms of reducing road wear, although the full benefits of air suspension are by no means clear to all operators, especially tipper hauliers. For them, lighter, less complicated steel suspensions are preferable.
The rental companies are now pushing well beyond the old business of ad hoc spot rental into long-term rental and contract hire arrangements with those major distribution companies (especially in the ownaccount sector) which no longer want to see their capital tied up by new equipment purchases.
Contracts signed often involve highly-specialised trailer bodywork built to satisfy particular distribution tasks.
The own-account sector, however, along with those involved in the food and drinks distribution business, are very much at the "posh" end of the market, from the viewpoint of the average small, hire-and-reward haulier. For him, a strong, straight-forward flat, with no frills, that will provide the maximum loading flexibility, and last for 15 years, is all that he will ever want from a trailer.