Apparently, we are not paying our way. Note the job that the article author does. A nice unbiased view 
Just one thing to say:::::
taken from the bottom of the article
Philippa Edmunds is freight-on-rail manager at the Campaign for Better Transport.
she’s the one that wrote this pile of ■■■ , nough said!!!
I challenge the author of this article to try running a transport company & experience first hand the eye watering costs of fuel duty, VED, vehicle maintenance, toll payments, parking payments, compliance and general upkeep of your O-license. Hauliers pay plenty.
That said, the issue raised about the amount of empty/nearly empty running is a valid. I do a lot of parcel work & it’s the norm to be pulling trailers round full of mostly fresh air. The public really are blind to the environmental impact of the e-commerce with quick home delivery craze, nobody wants to wait for anything anymore but no doubt if a whistleblower was to go to the press with evidence demonstrating the amount of lorries dispatched everyday with next to nothing on them, there would be widespread outrage. Not to mention the amount of white vans requires to deliver the bloody stuff.
Nobody would offer up any sort of solution though, they’d blame the smelly lorries and ignorantly point out what we are doing wrong, but would still want their ink cartridges off Amazon delivered next day & certainly wouldn’t want that elusive rail infrastructure anywhere near their back yard or to wipe out that rare newt in the local green belt.
Away from parcels, the shift from tramping towards 24 hour running of vehicles by many hauliers is contributing to the amount of empty running too.
Simple solution; let her not buy anything that’s been transported by these terrifying juggernauts and if she does, then she has to pay the full cost of what she wants to happen on top of the original price.
Bearing in mind that I’ve been flamed numerous times on here for suggesting that the rail freight industry has an axe to grind v its road transport competitor. 
So they want more efficiency and road friendly trucks and taxation based on distance.
Then they’ll obviously have no problem with a level playing field on fuel costs,removal of all state subsidies for rail transport and allowing LHV’s with higher payloads and lower axle weights and better tonne/mpg efficiency.Surely Corbyn wouldn’t want shippers evading their tax responsibilities,thereby reducing funding for the NHS,by using lower taxed,actually state subsidised rail transport competing for those funds and replacing the higher employment levels in Road Transport with the lower employment levels in rail.Oh wait some forms of employment cut backs and tax evasion are more equal than others.
I’m not in the slightest bit bothered.
Say Philippa and her ilk decided that for a truck to pay for its damage to the environment ( because you know, it’s nothing to do with her), there should be a £1000.00 per day levy/tax. Fine, makes no odds to me. When I invoice my customer it just reads
Manchester to Nottingham £500.00.
Daily levy £1000.00
Total cost £1500.00.
There would be no great exodus to rail because the rail network simply can’t handle it. What would happen is that everything would go up and the public would understand that if you want perfect roads and less HGVs, you need to pay more or reduce your expectations as regards your purchasing power.
As for vans and home delivery, presuming people were still going to buy 80% of the goods they buy, (maybe they wouldn’t buyquite so much), then there would be more single use freight vans,aka cars, on the road.
I’ve ordered some skincare this week that isn’t available unless I go into a major town and it will be delivered on a van doing 70 or so drops, instead of me and 69 other people hopping into our single use freight vehicles and cluttering up the roads.
Some well presented and valid arguments in reply to the lorry bashing drivel.
However, there’s more to come, next week we will be getting the " Cheating Lorry firms and the pollution regs they are bypassing", that should be fun. I wonder how high up the scale the “hysteria meter” will rise? ? regards Kev.
kevmac47:
However, there’s more to come, next week we will be getting the " Cheating Lorry firms and the pollution regs they are bypassing", that should be fun. I wonder how high up the scale the “hysteria meter” will rise? ?
The road transport industry ‘could’ ( if it wanted to ) pull the rug out from under that bs by making a wholesale switch to LPG fuelled vehicles.Then it can start moaning about nasty polluting diesel fuelled freight trains.
albion:
I’m not in the slightest bit bothered.Say Philippa and her ilk decided that for a truck to pay for its damage to the environment ( because you know, it’s nothing to do with her), there should be a £1000.00 per day levy/tax. Fine, makes no odds to me. When I invoice my customer it just reads
Manchester to Nottingham £500.00.
Daily levy £1000.00
Total cost £1500.00.
There would be no great exodus to rail because the rail network simply can’t handle it.
That would depend on the premise of road transport industry based on being limited to no further than Manchester to Nottingham type runs,or less.IE the work that rail doesn’t want which is just what they want you to think.The collapse of the container haulage market proves that rail can and will take work from road transport given any opportunity.While history proves that road transport needs a thriving long haul sector and fair access to that long haul market sector,in direct competition with rail,to survive.
As for the customer being prepared to accept that type of rate increase or that such an increase wouldn’t benefit rail freight operations even over that distance.Doubtful in the real world.
I haven’t bothered reading the drivel but what happens when the trains reach their railhead?
Are they installing tracks on every road as she seems to be claiming they are cleaner?
Carryfast:
Bearing in mind that I’ve been flamed numerous times on here …
Oh Carryfast, that’s a terrible thing to happen to a poster on here. 
Try as I might, I can’t think of a reason why anybody would flame you. (Honest! 
)
There’s a guy on TN who pursues an arguably treacherous Carryfastist agenda of derailing whole topics into randomness and mass suicides by use of irrelevant and usually verbose political carryfastisms though, so maybe the flamers have got you confused with him. 
Carryfast:
The collapse of the container haulage market proves that rail can and will take some container work from road transport given any opportunity.
FTFY. 
Carryfast:
albion:
I’m not in the slightest bit bothered.Say Philippa and her ilk decided that for a truck to pay for its damage to the environment ( because you know, it’s nothing to do with her), there should be a £1000.00 per day levy/tax. Fine, makes no odds to me. When I invoice my customer it just reads
Manchester to Nottingham £500.00.
Daily levy £1000.00
Total cost £1500.00.
There would be no great exodus to rail because the rail network simply can’t handle it.
That would depend on the premise of road transport industry based on being limited to no further than Manchester to Nottingham type runs,or less.IE the work that rail doesn’t want which is just what they want you to think.The collapse of the container haulage market proves that rail can and will take work from road transport given any opportunity.While history proves that road transport needs a thriving long haul sector and fair access to that long haul market sector,in direct competition with rail,to survive.
As for the customer being prepared to accept that type of rate increase or that such an increase wouldn’t benefit rail freight operations even over that distance.Doubtful in the real world.
Do not at any point carryfast, suggest that I am unable to think and have people telling me what ideas should bother my pretty little head.
Rail can and has taken freight off roads, however the capacity does not exist for a significant shift. And of course taxing road freight heavily will see a limited shift to rail.
Since we both know however that the government isn’t going to stick a large levy on road freight, it’s academic. Though if they did, it would have to be passed on . In the short term, and that short term would be several years if not decades, then a levy would have to be paid a.D it would be bourne by the consumer.
I’m sure you’ll come back with an in depth analysis, but I’m out of conversation with you, scrolling through the reams of twaddle that you and rjan engage in, bores me [zb]less, and I’m not subscribing to that .
dieseldave:
Carryfast:
Bearing in mind that I’ve been flamed numerous times on here …Oh Carryfast, that’s a terrible thing to happen to a poster on here.
Try as I might, I can’t think of a reason why anybody would flame you. (Honest!
Sorry if it looked like I was playing the victim card. 
I know I’ve said that truck drivers supporting rail transport interests is a case of turkeys voting for Christmas but hopefully Japanese rules don’t apply to the losing side of the argument in either case.
Carryfast:
dieseldave:
Carryfast:
Bearing in mind that I’ve been flamed numerous times on here …Oh Carryfast, that’s a terrible thing to happen to a poster on here.
Try as I might, I can’t think of a reason why anybody would flame you. (Honest!
Carryfast:
Sorry if it looked like I was playing the victim card.
Selective quoting can have that effect, but only if you supply enough ammunition. 
it might not come in the next few years but I reckon that if these idiots like phillipa Edmunds keep pushing to get lorries off the road[lets face it that is their aim]then I reckon the haulage bosses will fight back in time if they have to keep paying more money,costs are gradually creeping up when running transport companies and I can’t see bosses putting up with it,we have read that we have power as drivers,but the real power will come from the haulage owners in the end if they all stick together and just pull their trucks off the road for one week,i reckon it will come in the end,mind you when the government say jump the bosses normally say how high.
truckman020:
it might not come in the next few years but I reckon that if these idiots like phillipa Edmunds keep pushing to get lorries off the road[lets face it that is their aim]then I reckon the haulage bosses will fight back in time if they have to keep paying more money,costs are gradually creeping up when running transport companies and I can’t see bosses putting up with it,we have read that we have power as drivers,but the real power will come from the haulage owners in the end if they all stick together and just pull their trucks off the road for one week
Refusing inter modal road/rail work would be a good start.Bearing in mind that there’s probably not much in it for the customer in having to pay for both the rail and truck operations involved in such a freight movement.
“We notice you are using Adblocker”
Fair enough. Your “News” can’t be worth reading then.
These people want more intermodal freight until they find out they’re going to build a transfer station near their home.
May be must reduced car number in road.Some 2-3 litre car drive via city and inside just one driver.