Transdek launches urban double deck trailer

The trailer has been developed to meet the growing retailer demand for greater transport efficiencies on last-mile deliveries to urban centres, driven in part by the re-emergence of smaller format local convenience stores.

Designed specifically to carry high load volumes in the urban environment, the DUET offers a load footprint 200% that of a typical 18-tonne rigid, with cost and emissions savings of up to 50% for city-centre retail deliveries. The trailer incorporates a rear door closure permitting the lowest possible height profile while providing safe kerbside offloading. With a significantly smaller turning circle than a rigid truck, the DUET also offers high-level accessibility in congested city streets.

The new trailer is 10.6 metres long and between 4m and 4.3m high depending on specification, which can be tailored to customers’ requirements, and has a payload of 22-tonnes compared to just 9-tonnes for a typical 18-tonne rigid vehicle. To achieve optimum loading efficiency at distribution centres, the DUET is also fully compatible with low-profile double deck lifts. Full loading can be achieved in as little as 45-minutes.

The separate twin sliding rear doors provide a number of significant benefits. Safer off-loading for operators, eliminating the potential risk of incidents withpedestrians, cyclists or passing vehicles during road-side deliveries, as associated with barn doors; low height for easy access to restricted areas, such as forecourts; and improved load security and temperature retention for each deck.

Additional features to be fitted post-show will include a specially designed two tier column lift to service product to ground level at stores. The tail lift will also incorporate a unique hinged automatic safety rail for operator and product protection on the raised lift platform.

A recognised industry expert and innovator, Transdek’s Managing Director, Mark Adams FCILT, has a wide range of industry experience, spanning over 50 years in the logistics sector.

Adams says: "With the growth of the convenience format in the grocery retail sector and an increasing focus on high street deliveries, we believe there is an opportunity to revolutionise the efficiency of urban freight deliveries. On the one hand, retailers want to target the relatively high transport costs into city centres; and on the other, there is increasing pressure on councils and transport operators to ease congestion, reduce emissions, and to restrict access for urban store deliveries.

"With our new DUET trailer, up to 100% more product can be carried per vehicle, which offers significantly improved operations for logistics companies. The DUET can effectively half the number of deliveries, slashing transport costs and CO2 emissions by up to 50%.”

Transdek will also be exhibiting its award winning loading equipment, with working models of the 6.5-tonne V2G (vehicle to ground) and standard 6.5T double deck lifts on display. These will be featured in ‘naked’ style, with no cladding, to illustrate the engineering expertise beneath each loading pod’s ‘skin’. The surface-mounted units can be installed in as little as one day.