Hauliers urged to order longer semis
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TRAILER MAKERS have warned hauliers planning to take part in the longer semi-trailer trial that they may be unable to fulfil their orders if they are not placed soon.
With more than three-quarters of the allocation issued to operators still to be taken up, manufacturers are concerned that they could be swamped with orders in the second half of the year as operators rush to get vehicles on the road by the 31 December deadline. If this happens, some manufacturers fear they might be unable to build them in time to meet the cut-off, with operators losing their allocation.
Lawrence David is launching a marketing campaign to explain to hauliers the need to act quickly. Sales director Andy Dodge said: "For truck and trailer builders like us, [2013] is going to be ballistic because of Euro-6. Our lead time from order to delivery is May; if decisions aren't made soon, then we're going to have difficulty getting them built. Hauliers need to be placing orders over the next three months without fail."
Darren Holland, sales director at Cartwright Group, said that build lead times for longer semis was up to 16 weeks. "If people are going to embrace [them], they need to move quickly," he said.
Some hauliers have delayed orders because they are unsure whether they can use longer trailers in their operations, Holland added. "The majority of our customers have had all of their allocation built in one go and [want] more, but I think some have thought 'this is not for us'."
The Department for Transport's (DfT) trial saw 1,811 allocations to use the 14.6m and 15.65m semis distributed to 180 operators at the end of 2011. But the latest DfT figures show that a year into the 10-year trial only around 400 trailers are in build or on the road. The DfT recently wrote to operators warning them they had until the end of 2013 to use their allocation (CM 3 January).