The UK's trailer rental fleet is ageing fast, and the problem isn't going to go away until rates rise. That's the warning from TIP Trailer Services, which says it has witnessed rental rates diminish year-on-year for almost two decades. Damien Wall, marketing and services leader at parent company GE Equipment Capital, explains that in 1991 the weekly rate for a curtainsider was £160. This has fallen to an average of £80 per week today.
He says the problem is most acute for box trailers
and curtainsiders. "Supply and quality of kit is dwindling. As a result, hauliers are running old trailers, and this could have an effect on O-licences."
Although TIP continues to invest, and will take delivery of £12.5m-worth of new trailers in 2008, the UK will only get new reefers this year. Its new SDC curtainsiders and box trailers are all headed for Ireland "where the rates make a lot more sense". TIP says its FleetCare maintenance division has proved to be a huge success. The business only started in 2007, and it already has 2,600 trailers under contract maintenance. Wall says a growing number of UK hauliers are closing their workshops, "and we are capitalising on the trend".
Reed Business Information Limited.©2008
