The boss of London-based ELB Partners got in touch with The Hub to give his reaction to the recent Roads Task Force report and DHL's call for more delivery flexibility.
Here's Peter Eason's thoughts on out of hours deliveries:
I read with great interest your article in this week’s MotorTransport with Hugh Basham and in an ideal world I echo his welcoming of out of hours deliveries. This would no doubt increase productivity and take LGV’s off the busy streets of London, it would also ease congestion and make the roads safer for cyclists, if it were to work.
I do have a lot of doubt that it would work though, as the delivery points that we all go to have no intention of opening for deliveries out of hours because it increases their costs by doing so.
We did indeed see some ability to change during the Olympics, but this was also helped by the fact that everybody else avoided London like the plague. Many companies also built their stock up in the weeks leading up to the Olympics only to run it down over the following weeks.
This idea could end up achieving the exact opposite of what it is designed to do, which is to reduce trucks in London. Companies like mine would be forced to increase the amount of trucks that we send into London every day from 20+ vehicles to a much higher figure if we had less hours to deliver the goods during the day. In short, this will never work unless the delivery points open out of hours too!
Kind Regards,
Peter Eason, MD at ELB Partners
See our Even utopia needs deliveries and Don't mention the lorry ban articles for more on the subject.