under spotlight Rentals reflect upturn
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Livestock moves
by Karen Miles
• The average length of commercial vehicle rental increased substantially last year reflecting improved activity levels within the road haulage industry, according to a report out last week.
The average rental period of light vans and commercial vehicles increased from one or two days in 1992 to a week in 1993, according to research organisation MarketLine. The report's author Nazim Uddin says last year, for the larger rental companies at least, vehicle useage improved with the average rental becoming 5.2 days.
The report notes other strong indicators of economic recovery within the sector, including improved prospects for selling on secondhand vehicles and optimism from the rental companies about short-term prospects. In 1993 the rental companies turned in useages for their fleets of around 82%.
Uddin estimates the value of the commercial vehicle market last year at £456 million, a 3.4% increase on the previous year. In 1993 there were 2.7m rentals, 100,000 up on the year before.
However, there has been a steady decline in the number of rental businesses, falling from 1,450 in 1991 to 1,330 in 1993. The concentration is expected to continue as rental companies with just one or two sites struggle to compete with the range of vehicles offered by the larger organisations. This is despite the cheaper rates on offer from the smaller companies which run on older vehicles.
For the larger rental companies average prices were £165 for a daily rental of a 38-tonne triaxle tractive unit, £825 for a week, and around £123 a day and £615 a week for a 17-tonne curtainsider.