Commenting on last Thursday’s (4 February 2016) proposals by Mayor of London, FTA head of national & regional policy Christopher Snelling says that banning large CVs would be counterproductive because operators would be forced to use more and smaller vehicles.
“Stopping them using the morning peak would make it much harder to run businesses that rely on having their goods delivered at the start of the working day,” he adds.
Boris Johnson has asked TfL (Transport for London) to look at options for restricting freight, among a raft of measures aimed at ensuring the city’s roads can cope with forecast population growth to 2030.
The Mayor’s statement said he had asked TfL to look at “a range of options for banning or charging certain freight vehicle types at certain times of day. It will also consider what further incentives could be put in place to support more efficient use by freight of road space, such as consolidation centres”.
FTA believes there are “far more intelligent” ways of addressing congestion, pollution and safety that would not compromise the day-to-day running of London businesses.
The Association hopes that by “incentives” the Mayor means positive measures for cleaner, greener or more load-efficient freight, such as discounts on the Congestion Charge or reform the night lorry ban.
“There’s often an inherent contradiction when, in statements like this, people call for some vehicles to be banned and then want more use of consolidation centres,” insists Snelling.
“These centres are supposed to remove vehicles from the road... Banning HGVs would do the opposite, creating more traffic not less.”