The news couldn't have come at a better time for Royal Mail who are experiencing difficulties with existing clients like Amazon, eBay and the DVLA as a result of the of the impending industrial  action and fears over reliable service delivery -- especially now during the run-up to Christmas.

Teh QCA was looking for five bidders, but Royal Mail was the only one who submitted a propsal...naturally being the only company tendering they sealed teh deal. Good on them!

We'll bring you the full story tomorrow with all the juicy comment from the top execs.

The widget will serve up all the latest transport news and vacancies, classified ads, and blog posts and tweets from the Roadtransport.com team. It's entirely free - just go to www.roadtransport.com/widget to find out more.

What a trooper Palletforce CEO Michael Conroy is! Despite clearly being in pain at yesterday's official opening of the pallet network's 380,000 sq ft hub in Burton-on-Trent, Conroy limped through the ceremony on crutches and was on hand to welcome his VIP guest HRH The Princess Royal.

Conroy is suffering from cellulitis - and no that isn't what ladies get on their thighs but a painful swelling of the leg - brought on when blisters on his foot became infected. Why the blisters? Conroy was helping to raise money for mental health charity Mencap with a gruelling week-long, 22 miles a day sponsored walk, but had to be rushed to hospital in Devon part of the way through the challenge. You can still donate at http://www.justgiving.com/Michael-Conroy/

Palletforce moved into its new £30 million hub last Christmas, consolidating four old depots into this state of the art facility. The company says that there are signs that the recession may finally be coming to end, reporting volumes up across all sectors and parts of the UK.

Bet you're dying to know how many football pitches or double decker buses end to end can fit in the hub - the answer is 8 and 1,736 respectively.

CM decided to settle the argument once and for all by taking three indentical vans powered by three very different fuels (diesel, LPG and petrol) across foggy London town to see for ourselves. The results aren't what you'd expect. Look out for the full report in the 17 September issue of CM.

What are your experiences with LPG? If you've dabbled or currently own a whole fleet-load of LPG vans/CVs I'd love to hear about it.

Below is the lorry load of rotten cabbages in which UK Border Agency seized the following:

• 610,000 Mayfair cigarettes
• 960,000 Palace cigarettes
• 4,200,800 Respect cigarettes
• 638.4kgs of Domingo Azul hand rolling tobacco

Cigarettes were found hidden in a trailer load of rotten lettuces from Spain.

Martin Fitzpatrick pleaded guilty to smuggling.

Special mention should go to The Times, however, for this spectacularly ill-informed piece of flannel opinion. OK, we shouldn't forget that the purpose of a column like this is to provoke a reaction, but really, couldn't the writer have at least done some research beforehand? It would be fun to go through it and pull it apart line-by-line, but really, what would be the point? As US politician Barney Frank said of an anti-healthcare reform campaigner last week "Trying to have a conversation with you would be like trying to argue with a dining room table."

Plymouth Crown Court heard that he was caught trying to transport £1m worth of cannabis into the UK, hidden among 22 pallets of mayonnaise. He was blocked at Plymouth docks after arriving on a ferry from Spain on 2 September 2008.

Graeme is not the first and it is unlikely he will be the last who pays the price for contributing to Britain's drug culture. Other recent cases include: 

• 47-year-old Kevin Benjamin Jones of Welling, Kent jailed for seven years for smuggling £89,000 worth of cocaine into the UK.
• 32-year-old Polish driver Gracjan Zientara jailed for eight years after 34 boxes of amphetamines were discovered in his truck.

I am sure in the same way the strain of the recession is affecting many, a large quantity of cash would be appealing to anyone, however it is criminal gangs who will benefit from drugs sales, while a lorry driver is at the bottom of the chain and becomes the first immediate suspect.

The UK Border Agency (UKBA) told me that every day 40% of freight travelling to the UK is checked, so to smuggle drugs is a risky game with a high opportunity of getting caught.  

Bob Gaiger, spokesman for HM Revenue & Customs says:

"Our investigators, and their UK Border Agency colleagues, are determined to stop drugs entering the UK and reduce the associated harm to our communities."

As these hefty prison sentences demonstrate, the judicial system is showing no slowdown in its crackdown on drugs, and the UKBA confirms it is on track to increase its frequency of checks, meaning those carrying out crimes are at further risk of being caught.

An example of heroin seized by the UKBA from a truck.

While the Department for Transport is usually the very epitome of inscrutability, for once we're picking up some positive signals from Marsham Street on longer semi-trailers.

Of course there is still plenty of time for its desk-based research to run - the report is due back from the consultants in December - but recent publications and pronouncements from the department point towards a softening of attitude.

Longer semi trailers are proven to both benefit the road transport industry and reduce CO2 emissions, but have received a lukewarm reception from government, even though the investment is minimal and would come from the private sector. Industry support for the technology is growing, with Iveco now backing plans for 18m semi trailers. Now, Kogel, which has already made the investment in design and manufacture of longer semi trailers, has gone into insolvency due to a dramatic collapse in demand.

Meanwhile, FedEx Express is striving to lead in the use of electric and hybrid vans. At the same time, its fleet manager says they will remain niche. A good maintenance and improvements in diesel technology, although less high profile, could be just as important in cutting emissions.

This is the problem. High-speed trains and electric vans will get the government headlines. The real solution to climate change will come from millions of less glamorous, incremental improvements to technology, which sadly receive less public attention.