Newsletters

With freezing cold in North America and scorching heat in South America, why not travel to Central America! Central America acts as a major connector for cargo ships travelling from Asia on their way to Europe and to the Eastern USA. The Panama Canal provides a direct thruway particularly to container vessels, with the largest NeoPanamax vessel to cross in 2022 of 16,285 TEU (TEU is the unit of a 20-foot container). With the continuous increase in international trade, the idea of a dry canal (in Spanish “canal seco”) as an alternative to the Panama Canal has been developing from... Read More

Dear HVTT Forum members, I’m pleased to be writing the (belated) November 2022 edition of the HVTT Forum newsletter. A few things have diverted my efforts from getting the newsletter out during November, none more so than the work which is now well underway for our joint HVTT17/ICWIM9 conference. I’ll have more to say about that later in this newsletter. I’m going to go straight to the subject of weather. While it is customary to end HVTT Forum newsletters on this topic, weather events during 2022 have directly impacted on all things transport across Australia. The resilience of Australia’s road... Read More

Dear HVTT Forum subscriber, In South Africa, horrific truck crashes have reached the media headlines on an all too frequent basis during the past few months. In September, a crash in KwaZulu-Natal involving a truck and an LDV resulted in 21 fatalities including 19 children. One of the contributing factors, I believe, is the massive increase in the price of coal since February as a result of the war in the Ukraine, together with the inability of Transnet, the South African government-owned rail, port and pipeline company, to cope with the increase in the demand for the export of coal.... Read More

Dear HVTT subscriber, In November 2023, the HVTT Forum will join forces with the International Society for Weigh-in-Motion (ISWIM) to produce a joint international scientific conference under the theme: Technology Convergence 2023 – Setting the wheels in motion – Reimagining the future of heavy vehicles, roads and freight. As a member of both sponsoring organizations, I am particularly pleased to see this initiative come to fruition. To help promote the event and considering the upcoming deadline for abstract submissions (October 31, 2022), I decided to share some reflections on this theme in this month’s newsletter. Reimagining truck size and weight policy with systems thinking I spent... Read More

Dear HVTT Forum subscriber, I hope this newsletter from Europe finds you in a good shape no matter you are currently enjoying peak of the summer or winter period. For this newsletter I selected two topics being the various approaches to deploy A-double combinations in Europe and continuous rise of electrification in the road freight transport. As you may remember from some of the previous newsletters, I was updating you over the progressing developments to pilot of A-double combination (tractor with two semitrailers coupled by a dolly) on dedicated corridor between cities of Rotterdam and Venlo, being lead logistic hubs, ... Read More

Dear members of the HVTT community, My apologies for being this late with this June monthly letter, but on the other hand by being delayed I get the chance to include a very good piece of news: China is relaxing its Covid-related entry rules to 7+3 days of quarantine. This is an important step toward being able to live with the Corona virus and sends an important signal that China wants to be an integral part of the global society. Transport is at the core of a functioning economy – both domestic and international – and another piece of good... Read More

Hello everyone from a cold and foggy Buenos Aires – really challenging from a circulation point of view! Not for the faint hearted. I suggest you fetch a glass of Malbec. In Argentina we are currently experiencing a fuel crisis. The crisis is not only about the increase in the cost of fuel but its availability. The Transport Operators Association has even created a map where you can see the provinces (in a traffic light style) which are in trouble (red or dark orange). (See figure below.) The lack of fuel, more intensely felt on national routes at a time... Read More

Dear HVTT Forum subscriber, HVTT17/ICWIM9, Brisbane May 2023: Call for abstracts coming soon! I’m delighted to write my first newsletter to you as Vice President, Australasia and Pacific, of the HVTT Forum. I wish to acknowledge those who’ve held this position over the years – and, most recently, Rob DiCristoforo and John de Pont. It’s quite humbling to follow in the footsteps of others who’ve contributed so much to the HVTT Forum through this role, and I thank you for all your support so far. Having stepped into this role at the same time as the announcement of Brisbane (Australia)... Read More

Dear HVTT Forum subscriber I trust that you have had a good start to 2022 and that it will be a rewarding and productive year for you despite the ongoing uncertainties regarding the Covid pandemic. This newsletter contains a few topics related to road freight transport in Southern Africa and of course a weather report. The Performance-Based Standards/HCV pilot project in Namibia reached a significant milestone in November – the official launch of the first PBS project in the country. Although the vehicles had started operating in July, the launch was postponed due to Covid. I was fortunate enough to... Read More

Dear HVTT subscriber, On December 20, 2021, the Coquihalla Highway in southwest British Columbia re-opened to essential commercial traffic after major storms and flooding caused extensive damage and forced its closure on November 14, 2021. Those storms also severely impacted other land-based transportation routes (road and rail) to/from the city of Vancouver, effectively cutting it off from the rest of Canada. This recent event highlights the importance of building resilient road freight transport systems, which is the theme of this month’s HVTT newsletter. What does resilience mean? In general terms, resilience refers to the ability to recover quickly from difficulties.... Read More

Greetings to all HVTT Newsletter subscribers from Europe, After beautiful autumn, which almost felt like pre-covid period the winter season is slowly approaching us, and we feel the changes happening literally with every new week. Having less sun, more precipitations (somewhere with snow), and dropping temperatures appears to be favourable weather for the pandemic as the numbers are continuously rising in Europe on the global level. Sadly, it appears we are standing in front on ‘new’ Covid season with restrictions and lockdowns to come despite fairly high vaccination rate. In this newsletter I would like to share with you recent... Read More

Dear HVTT Forum subscribers, It’s been a while since China hosted HVTT16. The symposium was beyond expectations, especially given the challenges RIOH faced due to COVID-19. A big compliment to them is in order here! More than 1000 people participated in the online HVTT16. That is a record in the history of the HVTT Forum. We hereby welcome all new members of the HVTT Forum community from China and other parts of the world. All papers presented at HVTT16 can be found on the HVTT Forum website via the library (Library à Conference papers) and photos can be found in... Read More