GREEN MEANIES?
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Hauliers are used to being on the receiving end of verbal attacks from a number of environmental groups — but what exactly do these groups stand for, and who do they represent? CM spoke to three of the leading campaigners.
• "Calling us anti-truck is distorting the situation," claims Judith Hanna, assistant director of Transport 2000. "We recognise road transport as one of the essential functions — with most deliveries being local, there will always be a need for trucks. But within that we have concern that more long distance freight, over 100 miles, should go by rail."
However, Hanna does not expect more freight to be transferred to rail until hauliers are forced to pay for the "true damage" they cause to the environment.
"Road transport is essential, but at the moment it is under-priced, giving the industry incentive to do extra journeys and extra road mileage, which is not good for the environment," says Hanna.
She points to Just-In-Time distribution as an example of this: she believes that some firms who find it cheaper to do extra mileage simply store goods in motion rather than in a warehouse. "JIT distribution is very fuel extravagent and environmentally very questionable," she says. 'The truck industry gets a very cheap deal. Its costs are kept down with fuel being artificially cheap," Hanna would like to see a carbon tax, which she says would double the price of dery and make operators pay for the damage they cause to the environment.
Transport 2000 also wants operators to pay more in vehicle excise duty to take account of road damage, the effect on underground railways, accidents, soiling of buildings, and enforcement costs.
In fact Hanna would like to see hauliers faced with higher fines for breaking regulations, to cover the costs of enforcement, and she says that operators, as well as their drivers, should be responsible for overloading offences.
"The number of overloading offences suggests that operators do not consider the existing level of fines as a deterrent," she explains. "A lot of people think having a lorry rumbling past their home does not enhance the quality of life. They think the lorry industry is making a profit at the expense of their rest."
She would like this disturbance to be reduced by forcing hauliers to use smaller trucks for local deliveries — ideally with an urban 12-tonne limit. "Although the industry classes the 17-tonner as the city lorry, it still looks very big and intrusive," she explains. What's more, local authorities throughout Britain should consider adopting variations of the "invaluable" London lorry ban, she says.
Transport 2000 rejects the theory that larger trucks halve the number of vehicles used, because it believes a lot of them are running around without a full load. But Hanna accepts that larger trucks should be used for long runs, if such freight must remain on the road.
LONG DISTANCE I lanna questions if Transport Secretary Malcolm Rifkind went far enough last May in his bid to encourage a switch of long-distance freight on to rail (CM 30 May-5 June). "Increasing Section 8 subsidies alone won't encourage operators to set up rail sidings — a lot more needs to be done to the existing network," she says. The grant should have been increased, she believes, with every road treated as lorry sensitive. She was disappointed that local authorities were not given the power to insist that some unused land could only be built on if serviced by a rail siding rather than a road.
Transport 2000 also slams the Government for not helping the bus industry: "The bus industry has been flung out to fend for itself." • "There is a role for trucks but not to the extent to which they play at the moment," says the Green Party's Jan Clark. "We need to question why goods move about as much as they do."
She believes that the trend towards centralised warehouses causes a lot of unnecessary mileage, and that haulage would do less harm to the environment if a network of smaller regional warehouses was set up, served by smaller trucks.
"We must seek to reduce demand for transport as far as possible," says Clark. "Centralised warehousing means drivers travelling so many more miles backwards and forwards." The party also wants to replace vehicle excise duty with a fuel tax — but unlike previous fuel tax schemes, the Greens propose a sliding scale with dery costing more to bigger trucks with more axles and larger engines.
"One of the crucial problems with road haulage," says Clark, "is that it does not have to cover all of its costs. We would like to go back to basics and undertake a definite cost analysis, like damage to the infrastructure and bridge strengthening, air pollution and safety."
The Green Party would like the maximum size of trucks to be limited to 32 tonnes. "Any advance in fuel consumption through vehicle designs being improved aerodynamically, is nullified with the introduction of bigger trucks," says Clark.
She would like to see less vehicles on the road with more freight put on the railways and canals. She questions whether the three-fold increase of Section 8 subsidies for private rail sidings will be a big enough incentive.
The Green Party does not restrict its attentions to trucks — it wants to reduce car usage by enticing the public on to public transport.
• Friends of the Earth called on the public to report smoking trucks and buses with its Diesel Alert campaign, but says it is not anti-truck.
"We would like to see more emphasis on the environment," says FOE transport spokesman Adrian Davis, "but we recognise that with a consumer society there will always be a need for trucks."
But FOE wants those trucks to be run in an environmentally friendly way. Last year trucks pumped out more than 33 million tonnes of CO2, and speed limiters could reduce that figure by more than 12%, it says. The group also wants to see a reduction in diesel sulphur levels, a carbon tax and distance-linked vehicle excise duty.
Another Diesel Alert campaign is on the cards. The last campaign picked up more than 500 smoking vehicles; a follow-up would target older vehicles, which will not be affected by forthcoming emission regulations.
Davis would like one of the truck associations to set up a backload service so that the number of trucks on the road could be reduced. He cites a report by American research team AASHO that a single 40-tonner does as much damage to the road as 200,000 cars.
The number of trucks on the road should also be reduced by transferring more long distance, bulk and durable freight to rail, says Davis but he accepts that businesses are losing faith in rail so even traditional railfreight loads such as coal are switching to road.
He is not impressed by the Transport Secretary's attempts to switch freight from road to rail: "Although Malcolm Rifkind has made lots of noises towards rail, the investment into it is miniscule and coming down." He believes Rifidnd's recent speech on the subject was ironic because in his first five months as transport secretary he closed Speedlink, BR's small consignment service, along with 65 railfreight terminals, putting 25% of Speedlink's business on to the road. D by Juliet Parish