Possible Impact of Long and Heavy Vehicles in the United Kingdom—A Commodity Level Approach

Heikki Liimatainen, Phil Greening, Pratyush Dadhich and Anna Keyes
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Heikki Liimatainen: Transport Research Centre Verne, Tampere University of Technology, Tampere 33720, Finland
Phil Greening: Centre for Sustainable Road Freight, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh EH14 4AS, UK
Pratyush Dadhich: Centre for Sustainable Road Freight, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh EH14 4AS, UK
Anna Keyes: Centre for Sustainable Road Freight, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh EH14 4AS, UK

Sustainability, 2018, vol. 10, issue 8, 1-19

Abstract: The potential effects of implementing longer and heavier vehicles (LHVs) in road freight transport have been studied in various countries, nationally and internationally, in Europe. These studies have focused on the implementation of LHVs on certain types of commodities and the experience from countries like Finland and Sweden, which have a long tradition of using LHVs, and in which LHVs used for all types of commodities have not been widely utilised. This study aimed to assess the impacts of long and heavy vehicles on various commodities in the United Kingdom based on the Finnish experiences in order to estimate the possible savings in road freight transport vehicle kilometres, costs, and CO 2 emissions in the United Kingdom if LHVs would be introduced and used similarly to in Finland in the transport of various commodities. The study shows that the savings of introducing longer and heavier vehicles in the United Kingdom would be 1.5–2.6 billion vehicle kms, £0.7–1.5 billion in transport costs, and 0.35–0.72 Mt in CO 2 emissions. These findings are well in line with previous findings in other countries. The results confirm that considerable savings in traffic volume and emissions can be achieved and the savings are very likely to outweigh possible effects of modal shift from rail to road.

Keywords: longer heavier vehicles; road freight transport; CO 2 emissions; transport costs (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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