Sponsored by abbey Fuelcards, the road hauliers associationSpring Conference was held over three days in Malta andattended by 300 delegates. Conference discussed transportissues covering fuel costs, road congestion, toll charges,European Working Directives and ways of increasingefficiency in operation, under the guidance of severalleading figures from the transport industry.
Of particular concern was the presentlevel of UK taxation on fuel – the highestin the European Union (EU). Conferenceconsidered that the UK’s heavy taxationresulted in foreign hauliers having anunfair competitive advantage over UKhauliers, as it allowed them to fill with lower cost fuel abroad and drive all overthe UK without refuelling and with almost no charges imposed for road usage.
The basic cost of UK fuel at some 23.2p / litre was noted as similar to othercountries within the EU. It was this element of the cost Conference consideredoffered hauliers the most immediate hope of reducing their outlay by increasingtheir efficiency and method of purchase.
Speaker Professor David Begg – Director of the Centre for Transport Policy at theRobert Gordon University, Aberdeen argued that variable road charges appliedto all vehicles would spread the road usage period such that congestion wouldreduce. Delegates felt that the lack of road building was not helping the currentroad congestion.
David Harvey, Group Manager, Operational PolicyDivision of the Safety Standards and ResearchDirectorate, countered that the government wasconcentrating its effort into those areas wherecongestion was at its worst, namely junctions, thusmaking the best use of the existing road network.
Steve Clarke, Customer Services and Marketing Manager and Richard Stocker,Sales Executive, both from abbey Fuelcards sought to answer the questions of reducing outlay on the basic fuel cost and ways of increasing in-house efficiencyby the use of one or more of the range of Fuelcards now available from theabbey Group.In particular they noted:
- diesel direct for trunk road/urban operations, offering fixed price diesel atover 1000 HGV friendly sites in the UK
- euroshell for motorway operations, offering fixed price diesel at over 450HGV friendly Shell network sites throughout the UK.
- fastfuel for hauliers operating fleets of mixed petrol and diesel vehicles,offering over 1400 Texaco sites throughout the UK. Noted as the only
network offering fixed rate petrol.