| This may seem an unlikely article for me to write at | | | | environmentally friendly is it? Wait, I'm getting to |
| first. Working in the road transport industry, many | | | | that. |
| people assume it is automatically impossible to have a | | | | Now, if this return load is being distributed back to |
| green conscience. This isn't surprising, given that my | | | | someone who is already out on the road, it won't be |
| job depending on hundreds of haulage vehicles | | | | given to a driver for whom that would be the sole |
| dragging loads up and down the country, producing all | | | | purpose of the trip. This means that there are less |
| those environment damaging carbon emissions along | | | | wasted journeys (every mile involved has a delivery |
| the way. Actually, the truth is that my job allows me | | | | attached) and therefore less unnecessary carbon |
| to be both a green advocate and a road haulage | | | | emissions all over the place. Better still, if this |
| representative while still helping me claim a salary. No, | | | | collaboration for efficiency continues across the |
| I haven't invented a device that changes exhaust | | | | industry, then less trucks will be required to shift all |
| emissions into pure oxygen - it's simply thanks to the | | | | the work, and we may even see the |
| nature of freight exchanges. | | | | decommissioning of these carbon-emitting behemoths. |
| It works like this: under normal circumstances, drivers | | | | The environment will surely jump for joy. |
| or companies manage their own loads with their | | | | Unlike most environmentally friendly solutions which |
| customers, make their delivery and then return home | | | | require an element of self sacrifice, the freight |
| to the depot for the next load. Environmentally and | | | | exchange actually creates benefits across the board: |
| on a human level, this isn't efficient. The driver is, in | | | | the haulage companies/owner operators make more |
| effect, only being paid for the outbound journey, and | | | | money, the roads get less congested and the |
| in these times when the price of fuel seems to be | | | | environment becomes less polluted. Everybody wins - |
| rising on an almost daily basis, this is financially | | | | and for that reason, we have seen impressive pick |
| crippling. Now consider a freight exchange - a | | | | up for our online freight exchange for the 7.5tonne |
| network of suppliers and drivers/companies who | | | | and above market: Haulage Exchange. |
| distribute their loads between them meaning that the | | | | I can't say whether our customer base is growing for |
| return journey can contain another job. This means | | | | monitory or environmental reasons (or both), but |
| the trip is paid for (both ways) and therefore the | | | | whichever it is, the gradual migration to us and other |
| haulage company is not operating at a loss (even for | | | | freight exchanges is great news for the environment. |
| a minute) and profits can rise. | | | | And if our drivers save themselves significant money |
| All well and good, but this still isn't looking particularly | | | | as well, then all the better. |