Tarmac’s director of logistics Ben Garner outlines to Transport + Energy the challenges around payload restrictions and the future of sustainable transport.
Construction’s materials footprint is substantial. The UK-wide demand for aggregates alone stands at around 250 million tonnes annually, a figure which is only likely to grow to meet the government’s housing and infrastructure ambitions. These essential materials must be transported from quarries and production facilities to construction sites across the UK.
Tarmac’s logistics operation spans road, rail and sea, with one of the UK’s largest HGV fleets, which travels more than 50 million miles on public highways each year. We also draw on our extensive rail network, which provides a reliable and low-carbon means of transporting aggregates and cement from over 50 rail-fed sites.
Going electric
There is a pressing need for green, efficient eHGVs to carry vital materials, and the good news is that their rollout has accelerated in recent years. The technology is picking up pace, and there are measures to help industry adoption catch up. UK manufacturers now offer over 30 zero-emission HGV models, while R&D projects like the Department for Transport and Innovate UK-backed eFreight 2030 are informing industry on the technical solutions and ways of working to make zero-emission HGVs a success.
Despite these programmes, the eHGV transition faces a significant barrier – payload restrictions. Since zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs) are typically heavier than petrol and diesel vehicles, eHGVs can carry a reduced cargo weight.
There is an obvious solution. By increasing permissible weights for the heaviest vehicles where payload is most critical, the government could reduce transport movements and therefore the need for larger fleets, which would provide a commercial incentive for operators to invest in eHGVs.
But the benefits of this move could go far beyond an economic pay-off for logistics providers. Running eHGV fleets has the potential to unlock a host of benefits that improve the lives of residents in our towns and cities: cleaner air, quieter streets and less congestion.
As yet, however, the government has only given weight dispensations for some vehicle types, such as allowing 3-axle rigid vehicles to run two tonnes heavier. Currently, 55 per cent of new HGV sales come from 4-axle rigid vehicles or 3-axle tractor units, which can carry up to 20 tonnes and 29 tonnes of cargo respectively. Expanding the allowable weights of these vehicles could eliminate the commercial penalty of switching to electric and rapidly accelerate eHGV uptake.
Internationally, there is a precedent for extending permissible payload for heavier vehicles. France has already added four tonnes additional allowance for tractor units, while the Netherlands deployed its first 50-tonne electric truck in 2021.
Additionally, an ever-increasing number of European countries now operate 5-axle rigid vehicles. As the additional weight is spread evenly across the extra axle, these vehicles provide no additional impact on the road surface. Allowing electric 5-axle rigid vehicles that have greater payload than the current 4-axle diesel rigid vehicles would make it more cost effective for operators to deliver material, incentivising them to shift towards eHGVs.
If we want the domestic transition to be successful, we don’t have time to wait – there is an urgent need for policy and regulation change.
Putting rail freight on the right track
Amending the payload policy framework should help to boost HGV adoption, but that is only one piece of the low-carbon logistics puzzle. In 2023, over 16 billion tonne-kilometres of domestic freight were moved by rail in the UK. This is dwarfed by the 167 billion tonne-kilometres of goods moved by road – over 80 per cent of total domestic freight.
Putting rail at the heart of a logistics model can reduce carbon by around 70 per cent, so more needs to be done to drive the shift to rail to further reduce emissions.
Tarmac operates one of the UK’s largest rail networks, running 30 trains daily across over 40 sites UK wide. Yet only two of our 210 weekly trains are able to run entirely under the wires – that’s less than one per cent, so speeding up the electrification of the UK’s rail system will decrease carbon while unlocking an increase of up to 300 per cent in reliability, according to Rail Industry Association (RIA) predictions.
In a newly reformed railway, there’s more that can be done to encourage transporting goods by rail. The UK needs a policy that safeguards existing freight terminals and supports the connection of new ones, and a network operator that is incentivised to find more efficient freight paths to enable improved productivity and growth.
As our sector gears up for the clean energy transition, the potential for improved environmental and social outcomes in our towns and cities is vast. The development in low-carbon technologies and willingness from industry to cut emissions is promising. However, we cannot unlock these benefits without a policy landscape that adapts to the reality of new ZEVs rather than relying on the existing framework that was built for their fossil fuel predecessors.
Ben Garner is the director of logistics at Tarmac
