Part loads a plus for roads
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EMPTY RUNNING reduces road damage, according to a report published by the Transport and Road Research Laboratory.
It undertook a random sample of lorries using the A63 near Hull for a week in May 1980, and found that nearly four fifths of the vehicles were only partly laden. A fifth were empty.
The report says that if the loads in the partly laden vehicles were transferred to a lesser number of fully laden vehicles, the road damage would be 12 per cent greater.
Of the 1,646 lorries surveyed, six per cent (100) were overloaded by at least five per cent and two per cent (33) by at least 10 per cent. While 46 per cent of the road damage was caused by overloaded lorries, only seven per cent of the loads could have been reduced by reloading on other vehicles.