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January 2012
4 Comment
Fantastic rate rises
and the harsh reality of truck operating costs.
Imagine that you are running trucks in circumstances where you really don’t need to fret about steep operating cost increases such as those identified this month in our latest annual analysis. Why not? Because you enjoy government-backed guarantees meaning in effect that your customers have practically no choice but to pay for your services at rates that continue to rise year after year much faster than your costs increase. Never mind that you and your fellow operators in the UK are already charging many times more per kilometre than any of your counterparts in continental Europe. Still you are free to go on pushing up prices in order, your trade association argues, to allow you to invest in new vehicles and improved service. Oh, and you never have to worry about cashflow and credit control, by the way, because your customers are obliged to pay in full, up front, up to one year in advance. They are in no position to demur because then you could simply refuse to provide them with the transport services they need, secure in the knowledge that they can’t take their business elsewhere when the government has handed you and your fellow operators what are tantamount to regional monopolies.
Yes, this is a fantasy. But consider this. The above description of transport operations would instantly become an accurate and realistic summary of what actually is happening in the UK today if the word “truck” were replaced with “train”.
Small wonder that the latest round of UK rail-fare rises that came into effect this month have provoked so many angry responses.
4 Letters
From Greenurban Technologies chief executive Nigel Standley on the costs and benefits of the London LEZ. And from Alan Bunting of Harpenden on the puzzling implications of concerns over EU height limits for trucks.
5 News
Alarm at latest 3.5-tonner test failure rate.
6 News
Optare back from the brink as Ashok Leyland takes control. Tachograph calibration fees deregulated.
7 News
Mike Ball steps off the Volvo bus.
10 News
Schmitz Cargobull regroups in UK following Harelaw closure.
11 Whatever happened to...
suspension dampers generating electricity, the Flybus energy recovery system, plastic leaf springs, and Nissan’s NV200 van? All were making commercial vehicle engineering news two years. We’ve been finding out where they are now.
18 Under control in a steep climb
The cost of operating trucks in the UK has risen sharply again in the past year, with fuel and tyre prices the main culprits. But canny operators are refusing to let such difficulties get the better of them. Tim Blakemore finds out how in our latest annual operating cost analysis.
24 Engineering update
Ringing in the year of the tyre. Longer trucks on trial again, but the verdict on EU harmonisation already seems clear. EngineeringUK publishes its latest annual review of the state of the UK’s engineering sector.
28 People and jobs
Including a new managing director at MacNeillie; a new commercial director at Goodyear Dunlop's UK& Ireland operation; why Neil Scales has quit as Merseytravel boss; ups and downs for Mercedes commercial vehicle dealers; and road transport people in the New Year Honours list.
10 CLARIFICATION
In the Schmitz Cargobull news story on page 10 of this edition we say that its Harelaw plant in County Durham, now closed, "originally belonged to York Trailers."
Veteran freelance journalist Alan Bunting points out that the original occupant of the plant, in about 1967, was the Carrimore group, comprising Carrimore Trailers, Anthony Hoists and Autolifts & Engineering. They moved from factories in Finchley, Ruislip and Blackburn, encouraged to move to the north-east by government grants.
M1 Marketing boss Liam Olliff, who used to work for York, confirms that when he arrived at what then was the York Thermostar plant, in 1989, he was introduced to several former Carrimore employees who had been "hoovered up by York when they kicked off with Thermostar."
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