Dear IFRTT Forum subscriber,
the dynamics of the Northern latitude climate are slowly visible.
The vernal equinox is close and there are minute signs of an early
spring, healing my GHM, grey hair mood, effect.
March 4th I participated, as did three other IFRTT board members,
in a Brussels stakeholder meeting on the review of EC weights and
dimensions directive 96/53. The Brussels flavour needs to get
accustomed to: NGOs claiming that this is the wrong issue (let us
discuss W&D issues once trucks have been out-charged from the roads),
the railroad lobby feverously, and in my view short-sightedly,
protesting against any improvement in road freight efficiency but
also some stakeholders like car transporters, the IRU and vehicle
manufacturers sticking to the subject of the day.
The good experiences of longer combinations in countries like Finland,
Sweden and the Netherlands seem not to be generally applicable. From
which you might conclude that these countries are rotten kingdoms or
republics having high road fatality rates, polluted landscapes,
economies in shambles and criminal attitudes regarding road freight
besides having extremely strong road infrastructures. The opposite
holds, e.g. the Netherlands and Sweden being two of the four net
contributors (out of 27) to the common EU spending. Germany and the
UK are the other two.
The outcome of this overview is impossible to predict. The transport
and energy branch of the European Commission wisely left all options
open from a full European harmonized revision to doing nothing including
some intermediate solutions giving member states some freedom of choice.
The consultants draft final report is scheduled for June 17th and the
final stakeholder meeting for July 10th.
Finally, the VW purchase of the Investor and Wallenberg foundations
Scania shares has been well received. This ends a nine year long period
of speculations about mergers and ownership. VW relations dates back
to 1948 when Scania acquired the VW dealership for Sweden and Norway.
By the way, Scania is the Latin name of the southernmost province of
Sweden, where I come from.
Drive safely,
Anders Lundström, IFRTT president
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