Taking the long road

Volvo Trucks advocates increased use of larger standardised load carriers to ease congestion woes across Europe

The large amounts of traffic on European roads are causing ever bigger problems. Every day, tailbacks disrupt the traffic flow along 7,500 kilometres of roadway in and around European cities - that is almost 10 per cent of the entire continent's road network.

The EU Commission estimates the cost of these bottlenecks at more than EUR 80 billion annually.

For several years, Volvo Trucks has conducted a project called EMS (European Modular System) which focuses on increased use of standardised load carriers such as exchangeable bodies and semitrailers as well as 20- and 40-foot containers to simplify integration between different traffic modes. The system is based on the 25.25 metre truck rigs that have long been in use in Sweden and Finland.

"We are lobbying hard for the EU to adopt 25.25 metre rigs in continental Europe too, since this would permit increased use of standardised load carriers and thus stimulate the growth of intermodal transports," explains Ulf Ehrning, transport analyst at Volvo 3P, Volvo Trucks' development company.

He says the current focus is on evaluating the EMS tests recently conducted in the Netherlands and Denmark, among other countries. Soon it will be time for Germany to test the system. Critics claim that modular vehicles will steal freight from the railways.

"There is absolutely no conflict between longer trucks and rail or sea freight," says Stefan Back, chairman of the Road Transport Institute."Modular vehicles are tailor-made for intermodal transport; their freight-carrying units can be transported by rail and by sea. There is absolutely no reason to pitch the various transport modes against one another. Instead, the focus should be on ensuring that they can develop both individually and together."

Back also feels that modular vehicles would help ease the pressure on Europe's overloaded road network.

"With longer truck combinations, two 25.25 metre rigs can replace three 18.75 metre rigs," he says.

Volvo Trucks also runs its own tests on modular transport. For instance, the company has been testing 90-tonne 30 metre long timber haulers in regular operation in northern Sweden.

"Our tests show a 20 per cent fuel saving per ton-kilometre by switching from regular, European 16.5 or 18.75 metre rigs to 25.25 metre combinations. And if you step up to 30 metre long rigs, you save as much again," concludes Ehrning.