Transport for London Freight forum Oct 10th with Sir Peter Hendy and the TFL team.

Bacon butty breakfast and a full house at the TFL Palestra building in SE1 for a frank exchange to future solutions on road issues. There was talk and listening as the capital continues to grow and cycles look set to stay on the agenda post Boris. TfL 'parts of the cycling lobby are very keen on segregation, look at the proposals in consultation and respond to them with your views'

With retail shift from high street to home delivery, final mile solution grows; white van traffic clogs the roads of Central London and accounts for the greatest proportion of commercial traffic in the congestion zone.

40% of vans are unbranded, what is in them?

Are there multi modal solutions such as rail, what happened to Red star parcels? Courier drops into the London stations for short haul fast rush materials to city centres beyond London such as Birmingham, Leeds and Manchester.

The Energy trust wants to talk to us about locations for fast charge points.

Sir Peter Hendy opened one of the most interactive freight forums ever.

TfL talked and then they listened, three workshops went interactive, 'alternative modes, parking  & re-timing outside peak'

Sir Peter Hendy,

The TfL freight group is one of the legacies of the Olympic games. We are committed to freight.  We have a healthy dialogue with the construction traffic and are making progress with high vision vehicles. Roads disruption from the tour de France and tour de Britain were challenging but working together we achieved remarkable success.

Small increases in vehicles are making a big impact, we have a big job to do with local authorities. We have the quieter cities forum at Twickenham Nov 25/26 th . If we consult with you we think we can make things better.

Large numbers of cyclists are a permanent part of London. Post Boris, whoever is in power will continue this political legacy. Locations such as Elephant & Castle are an issue we want to work with you to solve as we look at the cumulative effect of wider traffic. London is a booming city and it's evolving. The extreme cycling lobby is keen on segregation and separation of road space, we want safety but not segregation. Operation Safeway continues and so does the HGV taskforce, we want to see margins of quality operators protected with these schemes providing sensible enforcement. Those operating outside the law of compliance will not be tolerated.

Ian Wainwright, Head of freight had addressed the institute of Couriers heads of industry not a week earlier, his message at the forum reinforced his position.

A third of traffic in central London is vans. 75 % of freight traffic in London is vans, while freight accounts for 16% of vehicles in London, freight accounts for 32% of vehicles in Central London. 40% of vans are unbranded, public perception is vans account for 5% but we are tracking much higher figures. As congestion increases how do we adapt? We have a document coming called 'direction of travel' voluntary and regulatory views are in it. There is no magic bullet for freight . We want to talk to more and more business, the low emission vehicle programme is close. If there is no voluntary change there will be regulation.

Three very interactive discussions followed, present issues but what about  the future, some of the crystal ball answers were fairly dazzling, bring back red star for rail, register commercial vehicles to park, educate the customers not to tick 9am delivery every time.

Alternative modes

Air, rail and water on the Thames. Much talk of former success of rail for priority rush on goods via the central London stations via the Red Star system. When a van dropped at Paddington to send a Slough, Reading or Bristol package it was one van less blocking the M4 arterial exit route of London in prime time traffic.

Parking

How does CCTV parking enforcement identify loading? Could we have vehicle specific parking for different hours of the day, commercial drops have no choice, why is there no data in the cab for loading bay locations? Do vehicles burn even more fuel circulating to park or illegally take the parking ticket. If a commercial vehicle has no choice could it be given a right to unload by its registration?

Re-timing

Peak traffic avoidance is not an option, but we could soften the impact with client education on the problem. Client drives 9am delivery. Customer is king and its them who tick 9am delivery, educate the customer to move outside of prime. White van delivers am because its busy collecting pm. Noise and night time is not an issue to courier, our clients are daytime.

Leon Daniels TfL wrapped up

It was prize time and no more deserving could it have been, The TfL forum was used by Prince Michael to present this year's award for International Road Safety. Prince Michael award was for FORS (Fleet Operator Recognition Scheme) went to TfL . Applause rocked the palestra building for a deserving win, FORS grown out of London to become a UK platform of recognition for transport.