New Euro haulage guide
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• UK hauliers will find no simple answers to the problem of becoming successful in EEC freight markets, but a report published this week offers a number of recommendations to help them take full advantage of increasing European liberalisation.
The report, Freight Transport in the European Community: Making the most of UK opportunities, was commissioned by the DTp and the Chartered Institute of Transport and was researched by the Polytechnic of Central London. It aims to reverse the fortunes of UK hauliers, who have seen their share of the growing volume of UKContinent traffic drop from
58% in 1980 to 40% in 1985.
It outlines the sort of positive action hauliers' trade associations and the Government need to take over the next five years leading up to the removal of permit restrictions and harmonisation in 1992.
The report urges hauliers to set up sales offices on the Continent to secure more incoming traffic, and to investigate the possibility of offering integrated European distribution services to multi-national customers.
It says they should adopt new marketing strategies with sales targets and contract plans, learn new languages and ensure that proper quoting is given — if necessary in a foreign customer's currency.
Hauliers need to be aware of significant cost-reducing opportunities including rebate schemes for road tolls paid on the Continent and reclamation of VAT paid abroad: "The best hauliers know and do all of these things already," says the report's author Jim Cooper: "The rest have got to follow."