Encouraging words from Chris Grayling, the shadow secretary of state for transport, last week as he called on truck operators to link up with him and sidekick Owen Paterson in formulating future transport policy for the party.

I've met with Grayling a few times now and he seems to genuinely have an empathy with this industry, which is something we should all get behind. The Tories are ahead in the polls and look like having every chance of forming the next government. No matter what colour of politics you prefer, for us to have a special invitation to get involved in shaping future policy is a chance not many will get and I for one intend to use it. To get involved, either leave a comment here and i'll be in touch or contact Grayling and Paterson direct.

The ever-increasing cost of fuel is causing UK hauliers to search for ways to reduce their trucks’ thirst – but just how much of a saving can be made?

Let’s start with aerodynamics, which according to the government’s free help booklet entitled The Streamlined Guide to Truck Aerodynamic Styling, can improve fuel economy by some 12%. Then what about the Concept Truck (pictured) that Iveco had towering over its stand at Hanover?

Apparently by adopting a Ferrari-inspired air kit on the tractor and trailer you can reduce fuel consumption by some 15%.

Interesting to read over at dcvelocity.com that both UPS and DHL are moving ahead with significant hybrid fleet trials. UPS is looking at what is claimed to be the first hydraulic hybrid diesel urban delivery truck, billed as the world's most fuel-efficient and cost-effective delivery vehicle. This was developed through a partnership between the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the U.S. Army, UPS, International Truck and Engine Corp. and Eaton Corp.

DHL, on the other hand, has been using a veritable panoply of low emissions machinery. It launched its "Green Logistics" environmental initiative in Japan earlier this year, with the net result that DHL’s Japanese drivers find themselves at the wheel of anything from the new Fuso Canter Hybrid, through to a fuel cell-powered Mercedes A Class through to – a bicycle. Hybrids were a big deal at this year's IAA. Big fleet interest may yet serve to drive their acceptance within Europe.

Comical Ali might have pulled it off, but it’s difficult to think of anyone else who could talk up the prospects for the US truck industry in 2007. Now it seems that the mainstream US media has suddenly awoken to the fact that there are bad times ahead. This article refers to Freightliner, but it would apply - we think - to the rest as well.

There’s been an awful lot of smoke blown over the previous months about how things are going to be not so bad, the landing soft and that the darkest hour is before dawn. We think that this is a crock. The US Economy is a worrying place at the moment. Political uncertainty in the run up to the November Midterms is growing, and the likelihood of people getting out and spending next year seems remote.

Add to this the EPA 07 emissions shift, and we doubt very much whether a US truck salesman will be able get arrested next year, let alone get an appointment with a truck buyer. In blunt terms, we’ll predict a market downturn of 40 per cent during 2007.

VOSA shows off new mobile checking technology. I've just returned from one of the FTA's fleet management conferences at Warrington today where Mike Smith, senior examiner at VOSA was demonstrating the new hand-held monitoring device the agency is set to roll out to its team of roadside and test station officials. It's a nifty piece of kit which will ensure the roadside checkers have all the information literally to hand when they pull trucks over. This single device can check digital tachos, draw on VOSA's database of intelligence and will hand out fixed penalty notices when the legislation is passed - possibly first quarter next year.

Yes you've read it right. According to an article in yesterday's Observer lorry driver Ieuan James claims to prefer Commercial Motor and Back Street Heroes to porn.

The article's all about artist, Sarah Lucas, who's taken a clapped out old Leyland and plastered the innards with pictures of naked women. The truck is on display in Regents Park if you're interested. As the four drivers who The Observer collared at South Mimms confirmed, truck drivers are not interested in porn...

Honest...

Technorati Tags: art, Commercial Motor, porn, sarah lucas, truckers

It looks like the Freight Transport Association is still rather keen on the idea of road pricing.
Deputy Chief Executive James Hookham spoke today at the Intelligent Transport Systems World Congress, telling the audience that road users would be hard to convince of road pricing - or the 'Toll Tax', as Motor Transport called the now-defunct Lorry Road User Charge.

Word on the street is that the Royal Mail may be on the verge of breaking its long-standing supply deal with Daf for tractor units as it puts the next order out to tender. Sources close to the mail provider indicate that a change in supplier may be in the offing for its Euro-4 tractors and I'll be surprised if all the makers don't throw their hats into the ring.

Following the last tender process - which took somewhere in the region of seven months from start to finish - for car-derived delivery vans the Royal Mail split the deal between Ford, Fiat and Vauxhall with the former getting the lion's share of the order. Don't be surprised if they do the same for their next batch of tractors, but who will they choose? MAN and Mercedes must fancy their chances on the basis of the recent Euro-4 group test in Commercial Motor.

A little bird tells me - a little bird with a very senior position in a major High Street retailer - that he is expecting a rather flat Christmas. As he points out, skyrocketing house price inflation is bound to mean a rise in interest rates in November. Add to that the fact that Sony's Playstation 3 has been delayed until well into next year, and you have the makings of a bleak Christmas for retailers.
You have been warned...

I chaired Don-Bur's lifting deck forum last week at the Brittania Stadium, Stoke-on-Trent and a couple of presentations - from the fleet engineer's at John Lewis and Argos - captured the spirit of the day indicating that, if the business requirements are right, then lifting deck trailers can represent some massive efficiency gains.

But as the guy from John Lewis, Ray Collington, explained if the operational requirements of the business change then investment in some fairly expensive and niche kit, can leave the operation a bit exposed. John Lewis trucks are now being expected to backload for sister company Waitrose, which requires a different type of trailer to the high-tech lifting deck variety the firm has bought from Don-Bur in the past.

This conflict between making efficiency savings in a very specific operation through the detailed specification of product, versus retaining a more standard build which can be run across all parts of the business is an issue which has taxed fleet engineers for years and seems to swing with the fashion of the day and debates are likely to rage for a good few year's yet.

I've been to numerous transport events in the past few weeks and digital tachographs is a recurring theme which doesn't seem to be going away. The legislation was introduced back in April and to be honest I thought it had been taken on board by the industry and was going fairly smoothly - how wrong I was.

Take up of driver cards has been less than 30% of the driver pool and talking to the rental companies you get the distinct impression truck operators, big and small, really don't want to know. There's national fleets speccing their current rental needs as "non-Euro4, non-digital" and many have deferred their purchasing and operational decisions until well into next year.This would seem to be prudent practice, but the big rental firms are raising the alarm regarding spot hire, particularly in the event of breakdown of or damage to a truck, when without a driver or operator card operators won't be able to use the replacement truck.

Those that have gone digi are reporting many problems in operation with the downloading and management of the data, so you can't blame operators for taking a sceptical view of the new technology.

The Scottish Parliament debated a report this week into the Scottish freight industry which had been produced by one of its sub-committees, but you could be forgiven for missing it. As it happens so did most of the MSPs - there were perhaps a dozen in attendance, 15 at a push, which probably gives you some idea of the interest that it provoked.

The Highways Agency website is the best site around for travel news and anyone running a transport company or spending a lot of time on the road would be well advised to get this site added to your favourites - what's more it's free.

As you'd expect, given the fact we're about to launch a new website for the market, I've been browsing the web looking for the most useful and interesting sites for our market and the Highways Agency website is full of excellent, free information aimed at tackling congestion. There's an internet radio station with traffic updates, RSS feeds to you desktop as well as a site giving traffic information on all the trunk routes managed by the Highways Agency.

If there's any sites you recommend we need to check out as we continue to develop the site, post a comment now...

An ancient copy of Commercial Motor has been discovered supporting a window frame in the house of Roger Stokes.

We always knew Commercial Motor had a number of uses, but this has to be the most unusual.

Roger contacted me on Saturday:

"Hello, sorry to bother you but I just had my windows replaced (4/11/6) and stuffed in the top of the window recess was a copy of 'The Commercial Motor' dated Friday 29th July 1938. Just wondering how long this paper has been going on for, if it's still threepence and is it still 'The largest and most influential Circulation?'"

Sadly the price has had to go up a bit since the threepence days, but it's still exceptional value at £2.00. We'll leave the CM readers to be the judge of its influence!

Freight Transport Association chief executive Richard Turner warned on Tuesday that the mistake of the fuel escalator that saw fuel taxes increasing well above inflation should not be repeated by the proposed "green" taxes. "We must not repeat this error in response to the Stern report. If taxation has a role to pay it must be different taxation and not more taxation," he said.

He added that transport is responsible for only one seventh of the problem for the problem and the UK as a whole is only one fiftieth of the global problem.

Turner, who was speaking at his last FTA dinner as chief executive, also called for tougher enforcement against overseas trucks.

South London operator PF Whitehead has announced its determination to run a retail consolidation centre for South London.
Consolidation centres take deliveries for a number of retailers in a given area and consolidate them onto one vehicle. This reduces congestion and provides smoother deliveries for hauliers.
The firm, which already handles home delivery work for retailers Ikea and B&Q as well as being a member of Palletways, believes it has the expertise and capability to run the consolidation centre.

The all-new RoadTransport.com website is beginning to take shape ahead of our December launch.

I said when we first started this blog that we'd try to keep users posted about the development of our new website for the road transport sector. With the launch now a matter of weeks away i thought i'd kick off with a sneak preview of some of the main elements you can expect to see when we go live.

Strange times at Eurotunnel - the company that runs the Channel Tunnel and the truck shuttles through it.
As well as facing up to the imminent threat of liquidation if a meeting of its creditors on 27 November doesn't go to plan, it's also threatening to open a new front in its on-going battle with the UK government over rail freight subsidies.

Richrd Turner, the chief executive of the Freight Transport Association, was summoned to Geneva last week by the International Road Transport Union to answer charges of xenophobia.
This stems from a joint campaign by the FTA and the Road Haulage Association to get foreign trucks to provide a number of details as they enter the country - the "Tell us who you are" campaign.
This was prompted by the level of offending that seems rife amongst foreign haulage firms with the Romanians and Irish amongst the worst offenders according to VOSA figures.

The next few days are reported as being the peak time for ordering Christmas goods online. Tomorrow (Friday) is the first day in December and it is expect that customers will suddently realise that they have to put their Christmas order in soon if they are to be delivered before the big day.
Motor Transport recently held a round-table discussion on the problems of home delivery. They come down to the fact that web site operators are reluctant to pay a realistic amount for the delivery and customers are rarely at home. This is not helped by the recent move by Tesco to deliver beds and sofas in two hour delivery slots for £10.
Home delivery is growing rapidly with Tesco adding a big catalogue of non-food items to its already strong food home delivery service. Even Ikea is to offer home delivery in Nottingham in the new year..

Sir Rod Eddington's much-hyped report into transport congestion is published today, a week earlier than originally intended.

Analysts and economists aren't known as media-centric folk but nonetheless a lot of scrabbling and jostling can be heard from the transport consultants' back rooms. A year ago Alistair Darling commissioned Sir Rod Eddington to look at the future of transport.

The Vehicle and Operator Services Agency's (VOSA's) recent survey of its employees was indeed carried out at a difficult time for the Agency. Not only is it going through internal changes and redundancies, in line with Gordon Brown's promise to cut civil service jobs, but the consultation into outsourcing has everyone jumpy.
But, although staff have a distinctly under-whelming belief in their management, the employee survey did produce some very reassuring results for the road transport operator and the agency itself.

The Vehicle and Operator Services Agency's (VOSA's) recent survey of its employees was indeed carried out at a difficult time for the Agency. Not only is it going through internal changes and redundancies, in line with Gordon Brown's promise to cut civil service jobs, but the consultation into outsourcing has everyone jumpy.
But, although staff have a distinctly under-whelming belief in their management, the employee survey did produce some very reassuring results for the road transport operator and the agency itself.

The Chancellor has rejected industry hopes for a reduction in duty for hauliers. But he may allow a “vignette” daily charge on overseas hauliers in the UK. He has also increased fuel duty by 1.25p to 58.35p.
Gordon Brown rejected the proposals from the industry to reduce duty by 25ppl on fuel used by the operators most directly affected by foreign competition. "After carefully considering fully the implications these policies would have on revenue, fraud and the environment, and the analysis of costs and competitive differentials set out in the Task Group report, the Government does not believe that there is a case for duty rate reductions. Quantative restrictions on fuel carried on incoming vehicles where also suggested. However, these would contravene Europe single market
He said that further work is being done to explore ways to driving more targeted enforcement on foreign vehicles. “One way this could have been achieved would be via a Vignette – a time based charge for the use of UK roads. This would be designed to make foreign hauliers pay for some of the damage that they cause on UK roads. If it was introduced it would very likely to be administered through the VED registration process. The Government is undertaking a detailed feasibility study.
The Chancellor published a report from the Road Haulage Industry Task Force summarising the evidence gathered. Gordon Brown said that "The Government recognises the important role that road haulage plays in a successful and high-productivity economy.

The Chancellor said "It is the Government's police that fuel duty rates should rise each year at least in line with inflation as the UK seeks to reduce polluting emissions and funds public services." What is worrying about this comment is that it says at least in line with inflation and opens the possiblity of it being increased to fund public services.
But You can see the full speech and press releases at the HM Treasury's web site once the Chancellor has finished his speech.

You can see the full speech and press releases at the HM Treasury's web site .

Transport associations are beyond disappointed with chancellor Gordon Brown's decision to increase fuel duty by 1.25 pence per litre, with the general feeling being that road haulage remains low in the pecking order despite its vital contribution to the economy.

The FTA says Brown has "broken faith" with the industry, adding that £170m in cost rises will have to be swallowed by the UK's hauliers. Chief economist Simon Chapman says: "The Chancellor himself is on record as saying that the logistics sector is a vital part of delivering future economic success. Yet his decision today suggests he sees the industry as no more than a source of tax revenue that he can plunder with impunity."

Meanwhile the RHA is "devastated" by the decision, with chief executive Roger King predicting that the rise "will, for many operators, signal the end of the road".

UK hauliers are already financially disadvantaged compared with their European counterparts, and this latest announcement will be a blow, King says.

The CBI has acknowledged the road haulage industry's feelings of the increase:

"Hauliers in particular will be disappointed by the increase in fuel duty in line with inflation, given they are already at a disadvantage with competitors based on the continent," it says.

We report on the Chancellor's original announcement

Government rejects many of complaints by the haulage industry in the Burns report