Freeing up the roads
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One of Pain's more surprising views is that more needs to be done to get people out of their cars and onto public transport, leaving the roads free for essential freight traffic. "There are around a fifth fewer trucks on the road now than in 1950 but there are 13 times as many cars," he says. "Trucks don't cause congestion, they suffer from it. My own fleet is one car and this morning I left home 20% laden, drove to Millbrook, parked it up most of the day, and tonight I will drive back 20% laden. No truck operator would consider doing that.
"If we really want to solve the problem of 002, then we really should be aiming at cars. There should be more incentives to get people out of their cars and to make public transport more sexy and usable. Don't target trucks, because they are incredibly efficient."
In a relatively small country with an ageing rail infrastructure, putting more freight on the rails in the UK is also a bad idea, Pain argues, especially if it holds up passenger trains.
"Freight trains are rather slow, which is why they mostly run at night here. In Ireland, they don't run at all," he says. "If one freight train holds up a passenger train, and that stops me using the train, get freight off the rails and on the roads. It is not a vote winner to say 'get cars off the roads and free them up for trucks' but in the end putting people on trains and buses is the most sensible thing. You can run trains on electricity, which can be from sustainable sources like nuclear or wind — it's difficult to do that with trucks."
Getting the message across to the public that heavy trucks are efficient and environmentally friendly is a challenge, Pain concedes.
"One truck goes to a supermarket and delivers its goods —300 cars go in and take the same goods out," he says. "We should deliver to people's homes in a 44-tonner — but no one wants a big truck in their little village. But it would be far better to have one large truck go in than five vans. But will the public understand that a fully laden truck at 56mph on the motorway is a good thing, not a bad thing?"