Code of Practice key to realising night-time delivery legacy

Transport firms must follow Transport for London's (TfL) Code of Practice if the industry is to enjoy greater flexibility when making night time deliveries after the Olympics.

The document is the culmination of several months of out-of-hours trials at various London locations, run in partnership with councils by the Freight Transport Association (FTA) and the Noise Abatement Society.

It comes after TfL commissioner Peter Hendy called on the industry to grasp the opportunity the Games present road transport at MT's Summer Freight Planning Conference last month.

Ian Wainwright, TfL’s road freight programme manager, tells MT that the point of the code is not to make operators jump through hoops.

"It’s practical, commonsense advice for both drivers and those receiving the goods about how they can work together to make deliveries as quietly as possible," he says.

FTA head of policy for London, Natalie Chapman, says: "We will be urging freight operators to follow and respect the conditions laid out in the CoP.

"If they can prove, as we believe, that out-of-hours deliveries can be made without disturbing local residents, there could be tremendous legacy benefits."

It comes as London's boroughs begin to publish their individual policy documents on how they are approaching their enforcement roles during Games time and what this will mean for operators.