'Mega' European
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companies▪ loom
• Liberalisation of European haulage will create a layer of about 10 "mega companies" offering a network of integrated transport services, says a former EC advisor.
These "architects of transport" will not run vehicles themselves. Instead, owneroperators and subcontractors will handle most of the actual trucking, says George Giannopoulos of Greece, now a university professor in transport.
Speaking at a transport conference in York last week. Giannopoulos said that between them would be a third stratum of operators: specialists in a particular field who could band together to compete with the mega companies.
He warned that deregulation will cause rates to plunge in countries which are heavily regulated, like Germany, Italy and Greece. However, countries like the UK, which have a free haulage market, would prosper, he believed.
Transiting non-EC countries such as Austria, Hungary and Yugoslavia was still one of the biggest problems for Community hauliers at the peripheries of the EC, said Giannapoulos.
Export comfort • Britain's truck manufacturers made 23,495 commercial vehicles in October — down 21.5% on the same month in 1989. But exports were 13.6% up on October last year, at 9,475.
Canute's crown • Canute Haulage of Purfleet, Essex says it is one of the first general hauliers in the South-East to win quality standard BS5r750.