Freight scheme shares industry best practice

Sharing best practice among freight operators whose vehicles travel in and around London is at the heart of the Freight Operator Recognition Scheme (FORS), a new initiative launched by Transport for London (TfL).

But it's not just a case of big brother dictating to operators how they run their vehicles in the capital. Instead, it is a mechanism through which companies share and adopt best practice with other like-minded companies, backed by TfL and the Metropolitan Police.

FORS has four key aims:

• To share operators' concerns/issues about freight distribution and vehicle servicing in London
• To get involved in initiatives aimed at improving London freight movement
• To have a single point of contact for freight initiatives in London
• To consider their impact on the environment, the economy and society

The TfL Freight Unit will act as a single point of contact for freight operators with assistance available online or by telephone or post.

Visits by TfL and its key strategic partner the Metropolitan Police Service, may also be arranged for operators seeking specific advice. Members of FORS will receive information on:

• Occupational road risk: TfL is working with the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents and other interested parties to provide a national approach to work-related road risk associated with freight and promote road safety in London
• Fuel efficiency: FORS will provide a single entry point for operators to access national best practice schemes. It has no plans to develop new schemes but instead wants to help operators find information about current schemes. It will help operators determine current performance and compare it against possible future performance
• TfL delivery initiative: TfL is developing a scheme to provide operators and local boroughs with a means of reducing penalty charge notices (PCNs) - especially parking tickets. Information about PCNs will be made available to operators, while procedures for dealing with them will be discussed during visits to operators by TfL
• Journey planner for freight: TfL is developing a journey planner that operators can use to plan routes and note delivery restrictions. FORS members will have exclusive access to a special version for multi-stop journeys and get information on routes that also take account of weight, width and height restrictions
• Freight training initiative: This element of the scheme aims to improve the standard of delivery and collection in London. Working with Skills for Logistics (the industry's Sector Skills Council), profiles will be developed, against which operators can determine how to target their training programmes.

EU advises operators to retro-fit blind spot mirrors

This will affect around four million trucks within Europe's borders and according to the EU will save over 1,200 lives between now and 2020.

The cost of fitment is likely to be around €100-150 per vehicle and will cover any truck built from 1990.

The big problem is the blind spot on the truck's passenger side which makes cyclists, motorcyclists and even cars totally invisible to truck drivers. The resulting accidents regularly cause minor accidents in the UK on a daily basis, but the more severe ones often result in serious injury or death

Thousands of retro-fit mirrors are already being handed out at UK ports to continental drivers at the wheel of left hand drive trucks visiting the UK to help address the growing number of accidents on British roads.

Safety campaigners welcomed the initiative but said it was worth mentioning the additional costs to operators when death or injury occurs, such as increases in insurance premiums and loss of business.

They believe it is in businesses' interests to do all they can to minimise risk - fitment of extra blind-spot visibility aids is one simple way to do this.

The Freight Transport Association has also welcomed the move, but insists that manufacturers are best equipped to ensure they design and fit the most effective mirrors for their own vehicles, as fitting the wrong mirrors can actually extend rather than reduce the driver's blind spot.

Belgium, Netherlands, Germany and Denmark have already implemented national schemes for retrofitting HGVs with mirrors.

Police are key partners

"FORS gives the Met Police health and safety powers. If a member of our traffic department stops a freight operator for a misdemeanour, then our job is not just to report the issue with the driving or their vehicle, but to then do an operator follow up visit a month or so later," said Ch Insp Brooks.

"The Commercial Vehicle Education Unit (CVEU) has been set up to check through operators' processes or offer support in helping improve their compliance or sharpen up internal procedures."

The availability of health and safety powers enables a Met officer to 'require' organisational remedial action to be undertaken by the operator rather than providing pure advice. It is the CVEU's intention to educate and encourage where ever possible. Support mechanisms within FORS are well placed to promote and facilitate organisational learning. No one expects an overnight step change in corporate behaviour but FORS is confident that a consistent and sustained approach will deliver the safety benefits it is looking for.

The CVEU has made 60 visits to operators over the past few months - operator reactions have generally been very positive.

Ch Insp Brooks said: "There is definitely an appetite for information - we had to organise a half day session on developing mobile phone policy and with less than a week's notice we had 12 people attend. All operators shared their best practice around the table and all gained confidence of how to not only build a policy, but put it into practice.

"One operator had experienced one of its drivers having an accident while on the phone and after the course decided to ban phone usage completely. Other delegates were surprised at the course of action, but he had seen the major problems caused by a phone related accident.

"It's this type of discussion that will help make London safer for all road users."

EU vows to get tough with foreign drivers

However, there may be some hope from Brussels as it has promised to try and introduce a new law compelling foreign countries to comply with the UK authorities' requests for data on lawbreaking foreign trucks.

Commission officials made the pledge to Norfolk MEP Richard Howitt.

A European Commission official told Motor Transport the directive will be part of an ongoing attempt to improve cross-border road safety enforcement.

Part of its aim will be to improve the exchange of information between European countries on road traffic offences that are safety-related, such as speeding.

This would help police and other enforcement bodies, like the Vehicle and Operator Services Agency, to bring successful prosecutions against foreign drivers.

"Co-operation is often very spasmodic but the directive will lead to a better exchange of information to improve enforcement in the case of non-resident drivers," said the official.

One of the big problems that UK trade associations have highlighted is that foreign drivers simply disappear and do not return to face prosecution.

"This new European law will stop foreign drivers committing traffic offences then fleeing abroad to avoid prosecution.

"But evidence that some other European countries are failing to require minimum safety checks on their lorries cannot yet give us confidence that it is really going to happen," said Mr Howitt.

FTA chief executive Richard Turner said he would welcome a law which prevented foreign drivers 'trying to evade the consequences of dangerous driving by exporting themselves'.

Source: Motor Transport www. roadtransport.com

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