Chancellor Gordon Brown's autumn statement in a few weeks could have big implications for the UK haulage industry as he becomes a Green Chancellor" in the light of the Stern Report on the environment. As diesel prices have fallen, there is a good chance that he will raise fuel duty for the first time since the fuel dispute. This will show that he wants to discourage making unnecessary journeys. He may well put a positive spin on this by introducing enviromental measures. In fact he needs to do this as a Euro 3 vehicle qualifies for a low emission certificate while a Euro 5 vehicle does not. If the Chancellor gives incentives for buying Euro 3 engines, this could hit the EGR camp that does not yet have any Euro 5 engines for sale. MAN therefore is pressing the Chancellor to give an incentive to take very old vehicles off the road. It rightly argues that doing this will make a bigger and quicker impact on pollution.

US trucking firms are bitterly complaining about the price of diesel, but their apparent reluctance to actually help themselves means they aren't going to get any sympathy from me.
According to the Energy Information Administration the average price of diesel in the US is $2.55 (£1.40) a gallon . While this might seem like a bargain to us in rip-off Britain, it has come as a major shock to a country which up until a few years ago was paying a little over a dollar (60p) for a gallon. With this in mind you would think that American operators would do their best to become as fuel efficient as possible, but I certainly didn't see any evidence of this on a recent trip to the US.

European haulier Vos Logistics hates AdBlue so much that it is prepared to sacrifice colossal savings in order to avoid using the urea solution.
When I spoke to company president Wim Vos earlier today he explained that his company could save “hundreds of thousands of Euros” on the German road tolling system if it only ran Euro 5 trucks. But since Scania, its preferred vehicle supplier requires AdBlue at Euro 5, he is buying its Euro 4 EGR trucks instead. “The potential savings are not enough to make us change our minds on AdBlue” says Vos, who has just placed an order for 1,000 Euro 4 Scania tractors. And Vos speaks with experience too, having seven SCR-equipped Scanias on its 3,000-strong fleet.
This is one of several anti-SCR stories I’ve heard from operators over the past few weeks. Why is it that operators using EGR-equipped trucks are more vocal than those using SCR? Is it that the latter group don’t have anything to shout about? Is a winner beginning to emerge from the great EGR v SCR debate?
Maybe you’ve got some positive AdBlue experience. If so, I would love to hear about it.

One thousand Euro 4 Scania R-Series tractors will join the Dutch operator's fleet in 2007.

Renault has launched versions of its Master and Trafic van ranges designed to run on up to 30% bio-diesel fuel blends. The Trafic 2.0 dCi B30 will be available with ratings of 90 and 115hp, with the Master 2.5 dCi B30 coming at 100 and 120hp. Initially available in France, Renault is still considering the fiscal and availability issues before committing B30 to the UK market.

It looks like biodiesel is going to be the hot topic for 2007, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised to learn that a large number of prominent UK hauliers make the switch later in the year.
I’m basing this belief on a telephone conversation I’ve just had with Greenergy – the company that will be supplying a 50% blend of biodiesel to the Tesco truck fleet. A spokeswoman told me their phones haven’t stopped ringing since the announcement that Tesco will run 2,000 trucks on biodiesel from this month.
She said: “A lot of UK fleets were sitting on the fence, wondering if there was a risk associated with it. But the Tesco news must have convinced a lot of people that the fuel is alright.”
But for the time being, the number of companies who move over to biodiesel are going to be limited by supply. Greenergy, which is part-owned by Tesco, has only just put its UK plant into full production and all initial production is destined solely for its number one customer. However it is confident that this will change in a few months when its supply and distribution networks are up to speed.

It appears that the price of being green is falling, as the price of AdBlue continues to plummet. Not too long ago we were told by the AdBlue manufacturers that the urea solution needed in all SCR-equipped Euro 4 and 5 trucks would cost roughly half the price of diesel – but that appears to be a gross over-estimation on their behalf.
Last week I spoke to David Simpson, the MD of Sheffield-based RW Simpson. He’s buying it in 1,000-litre IBC dispensers for just 26p per litre. “You just need to shop around a bit to get the best prices” he says.
But perhaps he’s not shopping around enough, because I’ve heard of even better deals. One parcel carrier, who wishes to remain anonymous, was angry that he had just paid 21p per litre for his latest batch of AdBlue after discovering that a rival had purchased it for just 17p per litre.
How much are you paying?

I’ve long harboured the opinion that Biofuels are a scam.

Rather than saving us all, they cost more energy to produce than they offer as a benefit, and, as such, are lulling people into an entirely false sense of security as far as oil stocks are concerned.

And now it looks as if a major European newspaper is joining me in my prejudice. How cool is that?

Iveco has announced that its new Stralis - due to be launched in the UK at next month's CV Show - is to be sold with a Euro 5 engine as standard (or at least as a delete option).
Now this may be a bold move, but is it really a surprise? In all honesty I can't believe that it has taken this long for a truck manufacturer to go down this route. The SCR camp has long been waxing lyrical about the benefits of the early adoption of Euro 5, and in my opinion it was only a matter of time before one of them made the technology standard. Market-leader Daf has been heavily promoting the benefits of skipping Euro 4 for over a year now and is currently achieving a rate of around 50% Euro 5 sales on its tractors. Now Iveco is taking an even stronger lead.
There seems to be a clear agenda here, and I wonder how long it will be before the other manufacturers follow Iveco's lead?
But with Euro 5 using roughly 50% more AdBlue than Euro 4 - how do they make the cleaner trucks enticing to customers? One obvious answer is to give away AdBlue for free - and over the last few weeks Daf and Mercedes-Benz have both told me that their dealers are prepared to do just this - throwing-in the urea solution as a sweetener with some orders. And now Iveco says it is considering a similar incentive "if AdBlue is seen as an obstacle".
Then there's the increased purchase price to consider - the new technology adds about £1,000 to the price of a truck. But who knows, maybe they'll be prepared to swallow this cost themselves. It depends how important it is for them to kill-off Euro 4.
A significant move from Euro 4 to Euro 5 would certainly prove unpopular with MAN, which currently does not bring its SCR-equipped Euro 5 offering into the UK.

Britain's hauliers are concerned about not being seen as green enough, and 45% of operators report that their customers are interested in how green they are. Those are two of the key findings of a major survey carried out by Motor Transport this week. It shows that the caricature of truck operators being uninterested in the environment as wrong.
In all 91% of respondents said that the industry needs to be more environmentally friendly and 95% say that the industry is seen as a big polluter by the public. A stunning 95% say that the industry should do more to promote how much cleaner vehicles are now. And 48% are considering moving to biodiesel.
The results show how seriously much of the industry is taking of environmental issues. This is not surprising because of the risk of new green taxes against heavy polluters, and because of pressure from customers. Going green has suddenly, and rightly, become one of the most important issues affecting the industry, another being who pays for the extra cost of being green. The customers want environmentally friendly hauliers, but are they prepared to pay?

Here is an excellent piece by George Monbiot, which further reinforces the view that BioFuels are a scam.

Maybe that should be Scam with an uppercase S, but whatever.

The most interesting part of the CV show for me was not looking at the huge trucks, but looking at the electric vehicles, and the hybrid on the Daf stand. And Smith Electric Vehicles showed its new Edison with a vehicle in Scottish & Southern Energy livery. This is an electric engine in housed in a Ford Transit shell.

Meanwhile Sainsbury's has ordered an initial eight electric vehicles for use in its Online home shopping delivery fleet. The retailer has also pledged to replace 20% of its urban delivery fleet with electric vehicles by September 2008 - and 100% of the fleet by 2010. Not far away was a stand showing an electric home delivery vehicle in Tesco livery.

At the other side of the exhibition, DAF was showing its hybrid 7.5-tonne vehicle, which should be available by the end of the year. While this will only go 2km on electricity alone, in combination with a diesel engine it could improve fuel consumption by 10%.

These two developments show how much a priority it is to create environmentally-friendly vehicles, particularly for urban delivery. Yes the vehicles will be expensive. But for urban delivery, these vehicles are the future.

What is more surprising is that the van market has not responded more quickly to the challenge of the environment. Yes, some are moving to 30% biodiesel (if you can find it) but where are the hybrid vans, or the electric vans from major manufacturers? Just having LPG vans is not a solution. Hopefully next year's CV Show will have more environmentally friendly vehicles on show.

Just as truck operators start to use bio-diesel to be environmentally friendly, Friends of the Earth campaigns against them. It has launched an advertising campaign criticising bio-diesel saying:
"Biofuels are touted as being ‘green’ fuels, but the Government’s dash for biofuels could:

Destroy forests and valuable habitats.
Produce more greenhouse gases than they save.
Threaten the food supply and livelihoods of some of the worlds most vulnerable people.
Biofuels can be used in place of petrol and diesel. But they can only play a limited role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
So where does that leave truck operators wanting to go green? You could use the limited electric vehicles, but their is an enviromental cost in generating the electricity and heavy loss in transmitting it. And of course hydrogen fuel is, as always, 20 years ahead.

The best way to be environmentally friendly is to use as little fuel as possible. That way we can be green and add make more money. That is what I call a win/win, particularly in time of soaring fuel prices.

Innovate, the fast growing logistics and property company, showed its green credentials this week when it opened Britain’s most environmentally friendly office building. It is aiming to have a carbon neutral or better supply chain within five years. As Stephen Dargavel, managing director said, it is one thing to do that with a building but another when it includes a big fleet of trucks. (see and hear the speech)
One of the reasons for this is that the supermarket chains are pressing suppliers to be environmentally friendly (although Innovate is owned by an Iceland firm called Eimskip and Iceland is very very keen on environmental initiatives).
Companies such as M&S and Tesco are also very keen on environmental initiatives and expect their transport operators to come up with green solutions. Sir Terry Leahy, chief executive of Tesco was on the radio on Wednesday and he mentioned that his fleet is now running on 50% bio-diesel.If you want to get on in the haulage and distribution industry now, you need to me environmentally friendly. Are you ready when customers ask you about your carbon footprint?

Commercial Motor is holding an environmental conference on October 19. Details from sharon.webb@rb.co.uk

The Conservatives’ Quality of Life Working Group has come up with what it calls a “Blueprint for a green economy". It covers a huge range of topics, but does mention road freight and the supply chain. It is quite sensible about road freight. It acknowledges that trucks of less than 10 tonnes can produce up to five times more carbon than the most efficient large HGVs "which are only slightly more polluting than freight trains,” it says. That sounds very understanding about trucks.

And it adds: “A future government should also look again at the current restrictions on freight vehicles to see whether the balance struck between size, axle weight, and road wear is the optimum to deliver the lowest carbon footprint.” To me that sounds like support for longer and heavier trucks. Such support is remarkable given that this is a green review.

But then it goes wrong. It says:

One promising model we would like to see followed up is the grouping of deliveries according to final destination. A Regional Distribution Centre (RDC) would allow large trucks to break bulk outside the city and transfer loads to smaller less polluting vehicles that make local deliveries to city centre locations much more efficiently in terms of cost, congestion and pollution. So if a retail chain needs to make deliveries to each of 20 branches across an urban area all the deliveries would now probably be made using one single HGV, stopping 20 times and getting emptier and emptier after each stop. An RDC plan would allow the HGV to stop just once.

This is just wrong.

Yes this is yet another green blog. Yesterday I wrote about the new report from a working party of the Conservatives on environmental issues. They quite liked the idea of big trucks.

Today I have been reading the latest report from the Commission for Integrated Transport, the Government quango that produces long boring reports on the future of transport.

The Conservatives reckoned that 8% of emissions come from the haulage industry. The integrated transport outfit in its report is much more pessimistic, putting the figure at 22%. Cars accounted for 54%, then lorries, followed by vans at 13%. The figure for railways was 2% (that sounds wrong) and the much-criticised air travel within the UK only came to 2%.

And not only that but lorries have increased their emissions by almost a third since 1990 and vans are doing more harm as well (particularly the way they are driven).

Fortunately Alan McKinnon of Heriot-Watt University shows in the report how the carbon footprint of the industry can be reduced.

The Liberal Democrats at their conference today have come up with the barmy idea of” hugely increase investment in the railways, paid for by introducing motorway tolls for lorries” Plans also include “Setting up a Future Transport Fund to invest in key rail and light rail improvements and extensions, including High-Speed Rail, by using the proceeds from charging road freight for using the motorways and the proceeds from a climate change charge on air flights within the UK, exempting ‘lifeline’ flights.”

They obviously don’t understand that lorries already page huge amounts of tax through fuel duty and VED. Much of that already goes to the railways.

And it has obviously escaped them that there are only 420,000 trucks on the road compared to 28 million cars. Trucks alone will never be able to pay enough money for such a “huge investment” in rail.

It is true that the German “Maut" (toll) does raise considerable sums from truck operators, which is meant to fund transport projects. But Germany has many more overseas trucks going through from the east. The defunct Lorry Road User Charge shows that it is very difficult to find a charging system that would work without adding considerably to the tax burden of British hauliers.

Still, the chances of the Liberal Democrats coming to power are small, unless they join another party in coalition.

We were pondering the ramifications of the Liberal Democrats' latest environmental policy and generally bemoaning the idiocy of politicians when a glimmer of hope hit us.

Rail freight accounts for just 1.1% of all UK domestic freight CO2 transport emissions. That was the headline on a press release I received today. You will not be surprised to hear that it was from EWS Railways.
Also predictable was the comment of “Graham Smith, Planning Director for EWS, who said: “This report from Professor McKinnon should be read by every company with a haulage requirement that is committed to reducing CO2 emissions. For the first time in one report the true scale of the domestic freight transport market’s carbon emissions can be studied.
Well maybe. He is correct in saying that it is an important report on the key issue of emissions but it is a very complicated story. The report says that freight transport accounts for 33 million tonnes a year of carbon. Of that 95% comes from road transport. But that is hardly surprising as road transport is the overwhelmingly dominant form of transport. Of course it accounts for a high proportion. What is more interesting is how the carbon output of rail and road compare per tonne kilometre. That is very difficult to calculate but it does seem to be lower than road.
But overall it is not going to make much difference. As the report says: Given the short average length of haul in the UK, the very low proportion of
industrial premises connected to the rail network, the country’s industrial mix and
the heavy use of our rail network by passenger traffic, it is unlikely that rail will be
able to capture more than 10-12% of total freight tonne-kms in the UK in the
foreseeable future.

Apparently 75% of the general public is opposed to the introduction of ‘road trains. That’s what the “Freight on Rail Group claims, citing an NOP poll. I am sure that the poll correct, but what was the question? This is important as the Freight on Rail. What is the Freight On Rail Group? It is hardly independent. The group itself says it is a partnership of the rail freight operators, Rail Freight Group, Network Rail, the transport trade unions and Transport 2000 working to promote the shift to rail freight. Did questioners fairly explain the advantages and disadvantages of both rail and road? Did they fairly describe the size of the proposed vehicles and the fact that they would be on limited roads? I rather doubt it.
The fact is that larger vehicles would reduce the total number of trucks on the road. That is good for the environment and improves the efficiency of the industry.
It is a great pity that the rail lobby has taken such an aggressive stance. It is good news that rail freight is increasing and the service is much improved. But it is limited in what it does by the need for freight terminals. You average Tesco is never going to be supplied by rail. But there are many haulage companies, such as Eddie Stobart, that are moving to rail. It is more sensible to encourage both rail and longer trucks.
If you want to read the facts, do read Professor Alan McKinnon’s excellent research paper for the Commission for Integrated Transport, published last week.

This week I will be looking at the speeches at the Labour Party conference to see how green Gordon Brown and the Labour party really is. While the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives are forthright about going green (even if some of the ideas are silly)
I may be wrong but it seems as if Labour is fading from bright green to a distinctly faded bland colour.
In our industry the Government says it wants to encourage bio-diesel but then gives a paltry incentive that only brings the price in line with diesel. Bio-diesel is difficult to come by, particularly outside London, and it requires more frequent vehicle servicing.
If Brown is serious about bio-diesel – and he should be – he must give a much greater incentive for the haulage industry to adopt it.
Another example is the introduction of the most environmentally friendly trucks - Euro 5 vehicles. Germany gave its hauliers a good incentive to buy these vehicles, by giving a substantial discount on the truck tolls. As a result many operators have brought Euro 4 vehicles, despite the higher price tag.
Here the Government has just grudgingly given a £500 incentive. That helps but it is too little, too late.
Perhaps Gordon reckons that green taxes are not popular with the voters. Given the polls for the Conservative Party, he might be correct.

Exhaust gas recirculation (EGR): the traditional method of reducing NOx (nitrogen oxide and nitrogen dioxide) in petrol and diesel engines.
It re-circulates a portion of the engine's exhaust gas back to the engine cylinders, mixing with incoming air and the re-circulated exhaust gas dilutes the mix with inert gas, lowering the adiabatic flame temperature and (in diesel engines) reducing the amount of excess oxygen.
The exhaust gas also increases the specific heat capacity of the mix lowering the peak combustion temperature. Because NOx formation progresses much faster at high temperatures, EGR serves to limit the generation of NOx. NOx is primarily formed when a mix of nitrogen and oxygen is subjected to high temperatures.
Selective catalytic reduction (SCR) is a means of removing nitrogen oxides, often the most abundant and polluting component in exhaust gases, through a chemical reaction between the exhaust gases, a (reductant) additive, and a catalyst.
A gaseous or liquid reductant (most commonly ammonia, urea referred to as AdBlue) is added to a stream of flue or exhaust gas and is absorbed onto a catalyst. The reductant reacts with NOx in the exhaust gas to form harmless H2O (water vapour) and N2 (nitrogen gas).

Soon the full report on longer, heaver trucks (LHVs) in the UK will be sent by TRL and Heriott Watt University to the Government. It is not known what it will say, but there is one thing that suggests it may be no.

Back in the summer the German federal environment agency published a report (including an English version) on “Do Megatrucks Contribute Towards Sustainable Trnasport?” It is a pity that they had to use the emotive word Mega truck, but never mind.

The report concludes: “On the whole, megatrucks do not contribute towards sustainable development of freight transport. Their use relieves neither the environment nor road infrastructure. On the contrary, additional risks to road safety have to be expected as well as the environmentally unfavourable shifting of freight transport to the road. Were the capacity utilization of megatrucks to be less than 80 per cent, the result would be an even greater impact on the environment from exhaust gas emissions than before.

“Rail's existing competitive advantages with regard to certain freight transport would diminish. Special offers for the transport of voluminous goods by rail have existed for some considerable time. The introduction of megatrucks would result in more vigorous competition and lead to a shift back to road transport with longer and heavier vehicles to the detriment of the environment. This would offset possible volume-related advantages of longer and heavier vehicles compared to standard HDVs.

“The Federal Environment Agency therefore recommends that better use be made of existing opportunities in freight transport by road and rail, and that further efforts be made to improve capacity utilisation of standard HDVs. It is up to hauliers and shippers to better implement existing concepts, for example concerning route planning and the avoidance of empty runs.”

Of course this report is by the environmental agency, not a trade ministry, so it will be concerned about the environment.
Professor Alan McKinnon of Heriott Watt University knows of the study – he cited it in his recent report to the Commission for Integrated Transport

It is worth reading the full report.

I have just been at the Commercial Motor Environmental conference and the Motor Transport round-table debate on fuel. It struck me that they were very much the same issue. Being environmentally friendly is the same as reducing fuel costs. The less fuel you use, the less you damage the environment and the more money you can make because you are not paying so much for fuel - a particuarly important factor now when fuel prices have reached record levels. We can reduce fuel use by training and incentivising drivers, cutting unnecessay miles by using routing and scheduling systems, and buying fuel efficient vehicles.

But of course none of this will be of any use if a vehicle hits a traffic jam. One of the best things that the Government can do to reduce emissions from cars and trucks is to make sure that the roads run smoothly and prevent traffic jams.

You can see an extract from the excellent Commercial Motor conference on video.

Hauliers are often criticised by for allegedly not paying for all the damage they do to roads and the environment. Protest groups and the Government often call for higher taxes from truck operators to make up for the indirect damage they do.
But now a major new study by Heriott Watt University shows that we do pay our way.
At first sight it seems bad news. It says that overall tax on lorries would have to rise by around 50% if they were to cover all the costs caused by trucks (or as the Government puts it, internalise the external costs)
But if you exclude congestion costs, lorries more than cover the infrastructure and environmental costs, even given the worst case.
In fact Britain’s high taxes mean that we pay a much higher proportion of the “external costs” than the rest of Europe.
“Raising the taxes on road freight operator above current levels would put UK operators at an even greater competitive disadvantage”
Also Alan McKinnon and Maja Piecyk say that taxing more will just reduce operators ability to buy new, less polluting trucks, and overseas operators pay noting to the “external costs” when in the UK.
This report is good news as it gives a powerful academic basis for not putting up truck taxes to pay for “external costs.
While is sounds very dull, this report gives a fascinating insight and facts on the industry.