The majority of local authorities are looking into lifting long-standing night-time delivery curfews in an effort to reduce congestion, a canvas of delegates at last week’s Freight Transport Association conference suggested.
The FTA believes a flexible approach to night-time deliveries is needed to reduce day-time congestion and enable LAs to achieve their transport and environmental targets. Noise pollution is a major factor behind the curfews – usually between 22:00 and 06:00 – but successful trials of quieter, lower-polluting lorries have done much to overcome such obstacles, last week’s FTA Freight Summit 2007 heard.
The FTA insisted it was not looking for a complete abolition of these restrictions, but is calling for a ‘wholesale review’ of the issue. Just moving back the curfew one hour to 5am would enable lorries to avoid the morning congestion hours, said Stephen Kelly, the FTA’s head of Urban Access Policy. When asked whether they were proposing or considering a partial restriction of their curfews, the majority of LA representatives in the audience raised their hands.
Only a handful had not sought to amend the restrictions. Nigel Collor, Dover’s cabinet member for access, said each case had to be judged on its individual merits. He said mutual agreement had been reached to enable night-time deliveries at an Asda site in Dover, because trucks would drive on to a turntable so they didn’t need to reverse, thereby avoiding activating the reversing alarm - a major source of noise pollution. However, despite such progress, Kelly acknowledged that the FTA’s campaign faces obstacles in the capital, where the blanket London Lorry Control Scheme has widespread support.
The conference also heard how night-time deliveries could benefit road safety. A study conducted in the Netherlands revealed freight deliveries between 7am and 7pm would result in a 41% decrease in road casualties, according to Robert Goevaers, a sustainable transport solutions advisor at SenterNovem NL. Furthermore, night-time delivery trials in the same country, using quieter lorries, have been conducted successfully and received no complaints from the public, he added. Elsewhere, Steve Davis, engineering manager of TNT Express Services UK, said he could envisage electric lorries being used in urban, central areas, in light of his company’s recent developments with this technology. Natural gas trucks were also mentioned as a cleaner alternative.
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