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I. [API N ., it's not your ima g ination; there really are
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more vans on the road than there used to be. Sales figures from MercedesBenz are a good example. In 1974 the company was shifting around .hree vans for every two trucks it ;old. Ten years later it was selling Nvice as many vans as trucks; and ay z000 the ratio was running at 'Our to one. However, the cornany reports that its sales at 7.5 °rules and above remained fairly :onstant over the eight previous Tars. So what's going on? "People are realising the flexi)ility of vans, and the growth of he internet is also having a sigiificant effect," says Peter ..ambert, general manager of van ales and marketing for Aercedes-Benz in the UK. "As a broad trend the increase n van sales has been going on for bout zo years. I don't think it's a ase of people getting out of runting tractors and trailers to buy aemselves fleets of vans. But then you come lower down in weight and people are thinking of adding to their fleet, they are realising that it's more flexible if you buy a few vans. "Before they would never have thought about vans and a lot of companies buying a few vans makes a lot of difference. Add that to the one and two-van buyers who are out there anyway and the two really gather to make the van market pretty impressive."
Buoyant economy
Despite talk of recession Lambert also sees the buoyant economy as a factor in the growth of the van market. Internet shopping operations such as Tesco Direct and the newly launched on-line grocer Ocado, which is in partnership with Waitrose, are running large van fleets for home deliveries. Ocado has recently placed a multi-million-pound order with Mercedes-Benz for Sprinters equipped with refrigerated pods (CM 1-7 Nov zoor). Lambert also cites the growth in lorry bans, coupled with the changes in licensing regulations: there are fewer drivers around who can jump into a 7.5-tonner with a car licence. One other factor Lambert sees as significant is the emergence of the dual-use vehide, partly driven by the changes in company car taxation. "Typical is the Mercedes-Benz Vito+3," he says. "It sits fine on a driveway like a people mover and has six seats. But you can pull three of them out during the week and use it for the job if you are a plumber or a florist, for example." The growth in e-commerce aside, could all these vans begin to encroach on the traditional haulage sector? Newcastle-based Murray Hogg, who runs a fleet of 55 trucks including car transporters, thinks not: "The companies coming in and running only vans are having no impact on our business. I think the increase in van sales can be attributed to the fact that people are ordering things on line and there are more home deliveries being done." If anything Hogg is bucking the trend: "We are going to reduce the number of vans we run next year. We were part of a
parcels network but we've moved away from that; we're going to go more into pallets. But we will still continue to run three or four vans alongside our rigid fleet for the purpose of city-centre deliveries."
On the other side of the divide Clive Churchward (left), trading as DashXpress, operates a fleet of nine vans out of Altrincham, Cheshire on a country-wide courier service. Does he have ambitions to get heavy?
"We have in the past considered going into larger vehicles," he says, "but we now specialise in smaller rush jobs or same-day courier work and we tend to use other companies on a kind of 'they do the big stuff we do the small stuff' basis.
"The standing charges would prevent us from going into larger vehicles; 95% of our customers use us for the smaller stuff—the odd pallet, envelopes, parcels, urgent parts—whereas the larger manufacturing companies use the general hauliers," Churchward adds. "We tend to be working for the smaller service-type industries. Although we do have large clients we tend to handle the service side of their businesses, not the mainstay of their manufacturing."
Churchward's arrangement with the larger hauliers works both ways: "People with larger vehicles tend to come to us if they've got problems with lorry bans or if they can't guarantee that the driver is going to get there before they stick the barn. ers up... things like that. Other examples are where there are loading restrictions in an area or where the road is too narrow or the loading bays are too small."
Larger vehicles
I-le also enjoys the flexibility the van fleet brings to his business: "It's easier to get drivers for vans because you've got no restrictions on the licence. And from the operational point of view you're not worried about the driver starting and then having a two-hour break and then driving again because they are not restricted with a tachograph."
The relative ease with which van operators can find drivers is very different from the continuing driver
shortage on the heavy side. For instance, Murray Hogg says that during 2001 his company has seen the highest turnover of staff in its history. Simon Chapman, chief economist at the Freight Transport Association, believes the change in HGV licensing could also be pushing operators toward the lighter side.
Serious downturn
Chapman thinks that vans appeal because employers are guaranteed a large and flexible workforce: "It's no use fleeting up on 7.5-tonners if you can't locate the desired number of dri. vers in your local area. Whereas if you go for a smaller vehick then you'd have that much mor( flexibility in the labour market.'
But neither is Chapman pre dicting any serious downturn or the heavy side: "There is always going to be a desirability fo: trunking operations—it doesn' make economic sense to replau one /7-tonner with a doze/ Transit vans! So as far as l'n aware the demand for hear trucks remains reasonably robust.
Chapman also sees part of thi growth in the van market a being driven by factors outsid. the haulage sector: "Remembe that vans aren't used just to carr goods. They are used as mobil workshops and a tool for people' work. My reading of this is flu it's a reflection in the overa change of the economy an things we're doing rather tha anything coming out of the tram port industry itself."
Overall Chapman believes th traditional haulage operators nee not fear that white van man is threat to business: "I think th; there is a big core of trade that moved by heavy truck because it the most environmentally effidei and cost-effective way of moving it