Professor Alan McKinnon, director of Logistics Research at Heriot –Watt University, said that at any given time, there is £460m worth of freight in transit on UK roads.
Increasing levels of congestion, although often predictable and regular, can cost the industry a fortune in delays and can be very disruptive. He said that food retailers attribute one third of delays to traffic congestion.
Adapting logistics operations was possible to combat this. Options included; switching transport modes, off-peak scheduling, overhauling goods reception areas, and supply chain event management.
He also said that truck-only road user charging would be a good way of de-coupling the industry from carrying the weight of the 27 million cars that currently use the country’s road network.
