TR RL report on haulage costs
Page 17
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
A REPORT published this week by the Transport and Road Research Laboratory might have proved very useful for tipper operators had it not been so out of date. Using the 1967/68 survey of the Transport of goods by road and the 1973 Commercial Motor Tables of Operating Costs, the report shows that the total cost of distributing aggregates worked , out at £190m, This figure' would have been reduced by 27 per cent if the laden running of the vehicles had been increased from 58 to 83 per cent. But the author of the report ("The distribution of aggregates — estimates of the direct costs of road haulage") Mr M. H. Glover, states: "It is not, however, known whether it is feasible to obtain so great a general improvement in utilization."
Mr Glover also points out that the data was collected from 15 operators, some in hire and reward and some in the own-account field, and based on four questions. How many vehicles do you operate from the depot and what size and type are they? How many trips does each make in a working day and what is the average round-trip distance? What is the average number of hours per working day? What is the proportion of mileage laden to total mileage?
He says that the information was obtained on a short survey by telephone and apparently the hire and reward costs tended to be higher than the own-account costs. On the front piece of the report, the DoE says: "Any views expressed in this report are not necessarily those of the Department of the Environment." TRRL Supplementary Report 102 UC is available from the DoE.
I.S.