Byte Back

Road Tech's Managing Director Derek Beevor, was a regular contributor to Truck Magazine. Called 'Byte Back', Derek's monthly column expressed his personal, sometimes controversial, view on issues that affect the Haulage Industry.

Lorry Road User Charge: a debacle in the making

Last year the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, announced that the Government intended to introduce a distance-based lorry road-user charge. The Government seem to think that charging truck tolls based on distance and time of travel will solve the UK's road congestion problems. It will not. Distance based road charging is not a new idea, we have had distance based road charging for a long time in the form of fuel duty. more…

The cost of data

Onboard computers are now becoming very popular, especially with hauliers' customers who want the detailed information and instant updates that these devices can send back to base. If you are going to dabble with these onboard computers then understanding the cost of using data through a mobile phone is crucial. more…

Where have all the hauliers gone?

For two years now I have been part of a government funded research project called ITeLs which stands for Integrating Transport and e-Commerce in Logistics Supply Chains. A grand name but all it really means is working smarter and increasing transport efficiency. The project is being run by the universities of Cardiff, Leeds and Ulster along with industry representatives such as Tesco and Princes Soft Drinks. more…

See what you can do... O2

Mobile computing is getting a lot of press lately. The idea is that your drivers will have a small handheld computer instead of a mobile phone. The handheld computer will be able to be used as a normal mobile phone for voice calls but will also be able to connect with your office computer system so that drivers' jobs sheets and PODs can be sent straight to the driver from your transport management system. more…

German Toll Collect

On the 31st of Aug the German government introduced the motorway toll for goods vehicles over 12 tons. This is just a revenue collection scheme. Last year 1.4 million HGVs over 12 tons paid € 425 million through the Euro Vignette system, this year the new toll of € 0.15 per kilometer will raise the money collected to € 3,500 million. The first thing the German government did after announcing the new motorway toll was to subcontract the job of collecting the toll to a private company. more…

Byte Back down under

This month's Byte Back comes to you from Australia where there are lots of things crawling around that could bite me back. This is the land of the giants; huge spiders deadly snakes and the biggest barbecue prawns you have ever seen. Then there are the trucks, now they are big, after 20 years in the UK transport industry I found myself staring at trucks and meekly asking for a go in one. more…

Partnership (pärtnr-shp) .n - Our Way or The Highway.

I've got a copy of a letter that has been sent by Kemira Growhow, the giant fertiliser and feed company, to all of its UK hauliers. The letter informs them that the company will be reducing the rates it pays to hauliers by 5% from the first of May. What is even worse is that the rates that they are cutting were set in Oct 2000; common sense tells you that it's about time the rates were increased, not reduced by 5%. Intrigued I decided to have a look at Kemira's web site. more…

London Congestion Charging

On the first day of the London congestion charging scheme, 20% of those motorists who paid the £5 charge paid over the Internet. A further 10% paid via SMS message. That's almost a third of the general public whose preferred method of payment is electronic. These motorists could have gone into a petrol station or corner shop to make their payment but instead chose e-commerce. Does this now apply to your business? Could it be that some of your customers would now prefer to trade with you electronically? more…

Telematics. The big question is: cost of communication?

There is a great deal of confusion in the market regarding on board computers and especially their communications systems so let's try and explain some basics. Onboard computers have two basic components. The first is the actual computer in the truck and the second is the communications system, (the way that your on board computer reports back to your office). more…

Computer Networks, Are you being given a choice?

Buying a networked computer system nowadays has become simpler in one respect but much harder in another. There are of course two major components that make up your computer system, one is the hardware and the second is the software. The simple side of the equation is choosing the desktop computer. That's easy; we all now use standard PCs with standard operating systems like Windows, nothing wrong with that. A little more complication comes in to the decision about our network when we need to decide which computer should be used as our main server. This could be another Windows PC just like the workstations or, if required, it could be a much more powerful Unix server supplied by companies such as IBM, HP or Sun. more…

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