Possible impact of long and heavy vehicles in the United Kingdom-A commodity level approach

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 CO₂ 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 CO₂ 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.