Comment
The long way T
Longer lorries could soon be allowed in the UK. Philippa Edmunds argues that this could be a disaster for intermodal rail freight
he government is considering increasing lorry lengths by up to almost seven feet (2.05 metres), despite the fact that there is no previous evidence to show that increasing lorry
sizes either reduces carbon dioxide emissions and road congestion or improves vehicle efficiency. The DfT’s economic and environmental
case for allowing longer trailers rests on there being fewer of them, and hence lower emissions and road congestion; however previous increases in lorry dimensions have not led to improvements in average payloads or a reduction in the number of empty lorries, which remains at one in four HGVs on our roads (MTRU report, p8-9). The DfT’s own research shows that almost half of cargos are neither weight nor volume limited – in other words they only partially loaded – so the question is, if the sector is unable to consistently fill smaller vehicles, why would it fill longer ones? The claimed environmental benefits of
longer trailers would rely on very high levels of load utilisation – in excess of that routinely achieved within the haulage sector. The current argument for this length increase is that some loads are volume constrained, but the reason for this is that weight limits were increased from 40 to 44 tonnes in 2001. If you increase the volume you will hit new weight limits, so you have a see-saw between length and weight increases, as it is difficult to optimise for both weight and volume. The Road Haulage Association has
pointed out that many longer trailers would have less volume capacity than existing double decker HGVs. Were the correct economic assumptions used in the research to estimate the extent to which longer vehicles will add to road mileage, due to demand being stimulated by lower costs (the rebound factor) with proper consideration given to the
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added congestion implications, longer trailers would be shown to cause additional carbon dioxide emissions, more road freight tonne miles, more road congestion and more road accidents. This is the reverse of what is being claimed would happen. Unsurprisingly, the road haulage
industry is far from united on the merits of this increase, which is being led by the big operators as it could be damaging to medium and smaller operators, already suffering from a recession and higher oil prices. Longer trailers would undermine
low carbon rail, particularly the emerging supermarket – domestic intermodal – rail traffic, the sector with the highest growth potential of up to 12 times in a 25-year period, between 2006-7 and 2031 (Network Rail The Value of Rail Freight, July 2010). Even the DfT figures state that the two-metre trailer would reduce rail freight growth by a factor of four, down from 732 per cent to 262 per cent by 2025. This is because the relative costs of road and rail will be adversely affected by the new units, and rail will face a cost disadvantage – savings of up to 15 per cent are predicted by some in the road haulage industry.
However the DfT suggests that this
impact would be offset by rail operators being able to use longer intermodal units than at present, increasing their own efficiencies. But this assumes that customers will want to invest in such units, ahead of investing in road fleet, and also that the existing equipment, much of which is new, can be written off. The mature road sector, where equipment lives are much shorter and economies of scale apply, will respond rapidly, with many commentators expecting that within two years, most semi-trailers will be operating at the new dimension. This will drag investment away from rail again and is likely to result in a downward spiral for rail freight in this sector. The longer lorry will become the default
vehicle, small hauliers will find it even harder to compete with the big operators, with the added risk that this approach could open up the EU directive and let mega trucks in from continental Europe. Any relative shift in favour of road transport runs contrary to development of the low carbon economy. While road and rail complement each other, larger trunk movements of freight can be more sustainably and more safely carried by rail than in larger lorries.
PHILIPPA EDMUNDS works for the campaign group Freight on Rail:
www.freightonrail.org.uk
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