Evaluation of the European road freight market for longer and heavier vehicles on the long haul and conclusions to new vehicle concepts

Abstract

A potential European freight transport market for longer and heavier commercial vehicles (LHVs) on the long haul is quantified by analyzing the European Road Freight Survey. In particular, we carry out a detailed analysis of the actual usage of high load capacity vehicles with respect to important market segments at a journey level, including type of journey, loading unit and load factor. LHVs increase the vehicle capacity and allow for reduced costs, if the average load is also increasing. Our analysis suggests that only 50% of the analyzed transports by ton-kilometres are fully loaded. In addition, it was found that Full Truckload (FTL) transports currently dominate long-distance transports with heavy vehicles, with pallets being used predominantly. New vehicle concepts should take these figures into account.