A recent article in the Financial Times suggested that truck makers have been “putting the brakes on technological change” with EU parliamentarians suspicious of manufacturers in Europe that seem “strangely impervious” to the increasing trend of building vehicles that are more fuel efficient.
We don’t think this is particularly fair, though. Lorries have developed considerably over the past 20 years, even if, on outward appearance, they seem to have changed very little (although it’s difficult to imagine how different anyone could make a haulage vehicle look!).
This got us thinking about transport in general and the ways in which it has evolved over the years.
UK’s roads in numbers
In Britain, there are…
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2,176 miles of motorway;
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7,596 miles of trunk roads;
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71,244 miles of ‘B’ and ‘C’ roads;
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145,017 mile of local streets and access roads.
Factor in every other stretch of tarmac and, in total, there is just over one quarter of a million miles of roads in the UK. Here’s how the transport they continue to support has evolved:
From canals to motorways
It may surprise you to hear that Birmingham has more canals than Venice, but that hints at the history of UK transportation. It was indeed barges travelling along canals that used to be one of the primary methods of transport for the country’s inhabitants and haulage requirements, along with trains and trams.
By 1952, however, 27% of all distance travelled was via car and 42% by bus. Canals had largely become areas for weekend recreation and rail use had fallen to 10% of overall travel. It was also at this time that the motorway system was born, although few would argue against the British Chambers of Commerce who believe the UK’s road network has seen few improvements since, leaving our country lagging far behind leading European nations.
The changing face of freight
Although freight now spends most of its time on the road, that wasn’t always the case. Back in 1953, 89 billion tone kilometres of goods were transported with rail taking the lion’s share and road and water picking up the slack.
Fast-forward to modern day transportation, and rail accounts for just 9% of freight movements with water and pipeline heading up 19% and 5% of the work, respectively. The road is now king when it comes to heavy-duty haulage.
The age of tolls and congestion
Few would argue that road transportation nowadays is anything but a challenge for both freight businesses and commuters. As previously noted, the motorways built in the 50s simply aren’t big enough to cope with modern day traffic. A huge number of widening projects are therefore underway, thus lumping more pressure and time delays on an already congested transportation network.
A case in point: the introduction of the M6 Toll in 2003 was the UK’s first toll motorway and was supposed to herald a new dawn for the beleaguered M6. In reality, the problem has simply moved further down the road, hence the additional widening efforts that are now in place (along with countless reduced speed restrictions).
The UK clearly has some way to go before its transportation network is brought up to speed with the rest of the world, but the prevalence of workers on our motorways is an indication that the government is at least starting to take the problem seriously.
What else has changed?
It isn’t just the UK’s transport infrastructure that has changed. Heading back to the subject of lorries, here are some of the key regulatory changes we’ve seen in recent history:
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2010: Learner lorry drivers no longer allowed to drive 3.5-7.5 tonne vehicles on public roads unless supervised
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2012: Truck drivers limited to no more than 10 hours driving per day
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2013: Euro driving licence adopted in UK
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2014: The Diesel Particulate Filter (DPF) becomes an MOT requirement
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2015: UK speed limit for lorries over 7.5 tonnes increased to 50mph on single carriageways
Summary
Road transport in the UK has evolved significantly, but we still have some way to go. We’re a small country with limited room, but the money that is clearly being spent on motorways proves we are at least finally heading in the right direction. What’s certain is that we won’t be heading back to barges and canals when it comes to haulage any time soon. Or will we…?
