You can probably guess what’s coming next – yes, another rant about fuel duty in the UK.
However, this one really is necessary. Here are some facts you may find amazing.

We’re up when they’re down

At the time of writing (summer 2011) the market price of crude oil has fallen by roughly 15-18% over the past 4 months. The result at the pumps? Yes, you guessed it, the price of fuel has, on average, gone UP by about 2% over the same period. The excuse being offered this time is that Sterling has weakened against the US Dollar (the exchange rate is around 1.58) and market prices are set in Dollars, however, not that long ago Sterling rocketed against the US Dollar and was sitting in the 1.80s.

Hands up if your memory is different, but it’s hard to recollect mass headlines in the papers at the time, proclaiming that fuel prices were sinking rapidly at the pumps due to the weak dollar.

Strange eh? Of course, it’s not just hauliers and our loads / back loads that are suffering. Most of us are also ‘ordinary’ drivers as well and we too see the pain when filling up with petrol. The trouble is, as the cost of our outbound loads and back loads increase, it eats into our ever-thinner profit margins and may, where we have the flexibility to do so, also result in price hikes to our customers and the economy in general.

Once again, many people in the haulage industry and elsewhere are starting to build up a head of steam on this issue – and it’s hard not to have a degree of sympathy. Nobody seriously doubts the current economic problems and the government’s need to squeeze every penny it can out of fuel revenues, but the ongoing apparent indifference to fuel being one of modern society’s necessities of life, risks creating serious ill feeling.

It’s true that our business faces many pressures and economic stresses at the moment – as do many others. Yet the difference between fuel and other rising price issues is, in the minds of many hauliers, just ‘different’ because it is so hard to see the underlying economic justification as being due to anything other than both oil companies and governments seeking to make huge and exploitative profits.

So, for the time being, much of the talking in the haulage industry continues to be around ‘business as usual issues’ – road conditions and the availability of back loads etc. But surely, things in the area of fuel costs and equitable solutions must change if that’s to remain the case?

Norman Dulwich is a Correspondent for Haulage Exchange, the leading online trade network for the road transport industry across the UK and Europe. It provides services for matching <a href=”http://www.haulageexchange.co.uk/”> return loads </a> and to buy and sell road transport and <a href=”http://www.haulageexchange.co.uk/available-loads.html”> delivery work </a> in the domestic and international markets.

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just might sound a little more impressive than:
•    “I spend a lot of time sitting in traffic jams on the M25”.

Sorry, but that’s the way it is!
Yes, we can talk a lot about inner beauty and ’the eye of the beholder’, but relying on those alone, in the early stages, might be risky. If presentation is key you may be able to improve your chances of making a positive impact by thinking about ‘repackaging’ yourself a little. Here are a few, hopefully helpful, suggestions for the courier looking to make an impression. You’ll see a phrase and a suggested alternative.
•    “I drive a van delivering parcels”. Try instead ‘I travel widely as part of my professional activities’.

•    “I have a great crash helmet”. Perhaps ‘my work necessitates the use of protective equipment’ will make it sound a little more glamorous.

•    “I eat in motorway service stations”. You may find that ‘I enjoy getting out and sampling British regional cuisines’ will work far better.

•    “I cycle around making deliveries”. In fact, that’s not too bad, but ‘my work involves respecting the environment’ just might sound a bit more ‘correct’.

•    “I rush parcels from A to B”. Maybe ‘I’m responsible for expediting logistical support to a company’s mission critical activities’ sounds a lot more glamorous.

Now it has to be said, that there is a danger in this. The fact is, that however good we may be as a smooth-tongued courier, sooner or later we are going to have to be a little more specific about what it is we do. However, the above techniques just might help you generate a little more interest in the other party during those critical early minutes, when it may be advisable to avoid going into an in-depth explanation as to just how quickly you can drive from Nottingham to Manchester.
The danger, of course, is that your technique results in you being fairly rapidly dismissed as something of a ‘XYZ’ (you can fit in there any one of several expletives that may come to mind!). Still, a courier needs to draw on all their talents from time to time, and the above may come in handy!

Norman Dulwich is a correspondent for Courier Exchange, the world’s largest neutral trading hub for the same day courier and express freight exchange industry. Over 2,500 transport exchange businesses are networked together through their website, trading jobs and capacity in a safe ‘wholesale’ environment.

Thank you for visiting Travel Articles Directory. Feel free to use any of our travel writing articles for your own website, on the condition that you also take the link we have included in the text. Check back for more travel writing soon; we’re uploading more original travel articles all the time!

This article was provided by LeadGenerators – the smartest SEO agency in London, and the proud host of a series of Internet Marketing training seminars and Social Media breakfasts.

Will Your Vote Count?
Yes, in theory, we can influence the latter at the ballot box every four or five years, but no party stands, or has ever stood, on a platform of making huge cuts in fuel duties.  Therefore, vote for who you like – but it is unlikely to make much, if any, difference to the price you’re paying in the garages.

What Does it Mean?
For the courier and haulage industries, excluding those of us that are driven entirely by pedal power, the cost of fuel has been a serious and ongoing problem since the first fuel crisis of the early 1970s. There are two aspects to the headache this causes our industry:
•    Our costs are driven upwards, sometimes unpredictably, and we are forced to pass these on to our clients (with all the ill-feeling and barrages of criticism that attempts at price increases bring with them);
•    For reasons that are unclear to many in the courier business, in some quarters the problem is not perceived to be the ever-increasing cost of fuel due to tax but instead that, somehow, our industry is not ‘green enough’.

The link between these two subjects is, at best, tentative. The vast majority of the price of fuel for the average courier is attributable to government tax.  The more successful a courier business is, then the more fuel it will typically need.  The more fuel it consumes, the more taxation income the government will receive. Therefore, constantly lecturing the industry to be greener by burning less fuel appears to be incomprehensible.
Isn’t that, in effect, the same as saying “you should be less successful”?  Hardly a slogan or philosophical viewpoint that is likely to help the economy recover and confidence to grow!It is also rather unclear exactly what can be done on the subject.

Is There a Solution?

Electric and hybrid vehicles are in the process of development and some are now becoming widely available; however, the average courier has even less control over the speed of technological innovation in these areas than they do over the price of crude oil.
There is no doubt that muscle power is extremely green, however, even the best cyclists are unlikely to be able to contribute much to (e.g.) express parcel deliveries over very long distances and to destinations that are not close to a railway service.
Some cynics may be inclined to believe that the apparently endless lectures on the need to be greener are perhaps designed, in part, to deflect attention away from the mountain of cost that our industry (and the wider economy) has to live with in terms of government fuel taxes. What some people in our industry would prefer to see, is rather greater emphasis on understanding:
•    What the true negative impact is of high fuel duties on the economy (including, of course, the courier business);
•    Exactly what the government is doing to stimulate the faster arrival of cleaner technology to replace our existing dependence upon carbon fuels.

Of course, those same cynics might also say that if society were able to change to entirely green electric-powered vehicles overnight, the government would have a financial crisis as their tax revenues disappeared.

So, for the poor old courier, the arrival of new green technology is unlikely to lead to lower costs in the medium to long-term.  We may very well find that there is a sudden painful increase in the cost of the electricity bills as someone, somewhere, decides that all that lost fuel tax revenue has to be replaced!

Norman Dulwich is a correspondent for Courier Exchange, the world’s largest neutral trading hub for the same day courier and express freight exchange industry. Over 2,500 transport exchange businesses are networked together through their website, trading jobs and capacity in a safe ‘wholesale’ environment.

Thank you for visiting Travel Articles Directory. Feel free to use any of our travel writing articles for your own website, on the condition that you also take the link we have included in the text. Check back for more travel writing soon; we’re uploading more original travel articles all the time!

This article was provided by LeadGenerators – the smartest SEO agency in London, and the proud host of a series of Internet Marketing training seminars and Social Media breakfasts.

“Sorry, he couldn’t get in today due to the weather”
Reasonable enough you may think, except that it was June and a beautiful sunny day. Presumably the weather was so good that the recipient couldn’t get in due to a serious reluctance to leave the garden unattended.

“I can’t sign for it as I don’t have a pen of the right colour”

If that sounds odd, you might find it even odder when you know that the problem was due to the recipient’s company insisting that all signatures must be given in black, as opposed to any other colour, ink.

“I have no choice but to sign for it as being opened and possibly damaged”
Once again, perhaps you think this is not an unreasonable position at face value? Well, you may change your mind when you discover that the person concerned had actually insisted on opening the sealed package to begin with – to see what was inside!

“Sorry, I can’t sign for it as I’m not here”
This could lead to a very interesting philosophical debate, however, it was rather less interesting than that. The individual concerned decided that, as they were officially on holiday and shouldn’t be in the office, they couldn’t really sign for parcel.

“I can’t accept it – it’s the wrong shape”

Although the package was entirely undamaged, because it was rectangular as opposed to the anticipated square shape, the recipient decided that signing for it would be too risky.

“I can’t sign for it here – take it to the other entrance and I’ll sign for it there”

If you’re thinking this must have been a large object requiring specialist lifting gear to unload, you are mistaken.  It was, in fact, a very small parcel containing some paperwork.

“You can’t deliver it here – it has the wrong address on it”

Perfectly true – so a valid position to adopt, you may think? Well, not given that an attempt to deliver the parcel to the address on it had already been made, only for the courier to be re-routed to the correct offices where the recipient was based.  So, although the delivery attempt was being made to the right location, because the address on the parcel was incorrect, they would not accept it.

“We can’t accept it because we don’t know what it is”
You may see this as a slightly paranoid reflection of the security conscious world that we are all forced to live in these days. However, given the parcel had been sent by the company’s own head office, you would imagine that the security risks were relatively small!
Who said the life of a courier was easy?

Norman Dulwich is a correspondent for Courier Exchange, the world’s largest neutral trading hub for the same day courier and express freight exchange industry. Over 2,500 transport exchange businesses are networked together through their website, trading jobs and capacity in a safe ‘wholesale’ environment.

Thank you for visiting Travel Articles Directory. Feel free to use any of our travel writing articles for your own website, on the condition that you also take the link we have included in the text. Check back for more travel writing soon; we’re uploading more original travel articles all the time!

This article was provided by LeadGenerators – the smartest SEO agency in London, and the proud host of a series of Internet Marketing training seminars and Social Media breakfasts.

So the friendly face of the weather forecaster each night on TV is something that many in the transport and delivery business pay a lot of attention to. In fact, the forecaster is often listened to with rather more rapt attention than the boss. However, what is really sad about this is just how little we sometimes get in return for our adoration.

What does that mean? Well, if you ever set out the office dressed in your shorts and T-shirt ready for a busy day cycling around in the 27 degree sunshine you were promised the night before, only to find by lunchtime that you’re cycling in virtually Arctic conditions, then you’ll know what frustration really is! Okay, that may just confirm the politically incorrect view that anyone travelling around on two wheels probably deserves all they get from the weather; but before the four wheel brigade start laughing too much, it is worth remembering that they are not immune either.
Setting out from home on a long-distance trip expecting to find light cloud and drizzle on the way and ending up wishing that you were driving a snowplough, can be anything other than funny. The newspapers are regularly full of post-fiasco analyses following on from major weather forecast howlers. That’s not a lot of consolation to the poor old driver/rider that has seen their delivery schedules wiped out or had their kneecaps frozen off.
Yet there is another way of looking at this. This article isn’t trying to start any form of conspiracy theory, but have you noticed how some in the courier fraternity always appear to be dressed and equipped perfectly for the weather on the day concerned? You may have laughed at the competitor you saw going past in July dressed in snowshoes and winter parkas but wasn’t it strange how later in the day that “once in a lifetime” freak July blizzard struck? Wasn’t it even stranger that only the night before, that friendly TV weather forecaster had promised sunshine, warm temperatures and blue skies?
What’s going on? How was it that some people seem to be far better informed about the weather even though, in theory, they have the same sources as you? At face value, if you have experienced this, there seems to be only a few possible explanations:
• Aliens (when in trouble, alien intervention is always a good excuse for a people in the delivery industry);

• Secret government experiments (that courier that always seems to be well informed about the weather probably has a relative in the department concerned);

• That other courier is psychic;

• The weather forecaster is secretly on the payroll of your competitors and is deliberately feeding you misleading forecasts.

It has to be admitted that this is a very unlikely bunch of explanations; however, you may be able to put one of them to the test. The next time you’re watching the weather forecast on the telly, look very closely at the UK weather map. If you look very, very closely to the area of the Shetland Islands, is that barely-visible smudge in the sea just possibly your courier competitor’s logo?

Norman Dulwich is a correspondent for Courier Exchange, the world’s largest neutral trading hub for the same day <a href=”http://www.courierexchange.co.uk”> courier </a> and express freight exchange industry. Over 2,500 transport exchange businesses are networked together through their website, trading jobs and capacity in a safe ‘wholesale’ environment.

Norman Dulwich is a correspondent for Courier Exchange, the world’s largest neutral trading hub for the same day courier and express freight exchange industry. Over 2,500 transport exchange businesses are networked together through their website, trading jobs and capacity in a safe ‘wholesale’ environment.

Thank you for visiting Travel Articles Directory. Feel free to use any of our travel writing articles for your own website, on the condition that you also take the link we have included in the text. Check back for more travel writing soon; we’re uploading more original travel articles all the time!

This article was provided by LeadGenerators – the smartest SEO agency in London, and the proud host of a series of Internet Marketing training seminars and Social Media breakfasts.

A Slippery Character

One driver on a 200 mile round trip picked up his uninvited guest as he delivered a load of heavy machinery to a farm. When he arrived back home in the dead of night, as he climbed down from the cabin, he narrowly missed stepping on to a one-metre long grass snake which had attached itself to the running board. Now, the mystery is twofold: How did the snake actually get on to the running board which was at least 60cm off the ground; and even more admirable on the part of the snake, how did it manage to stay there when the truck had been powering along the motorway for nearly 100 miles? Neither question of course will ever be answered and the snake certainly wasn’t telling! The legend will just have to go down in haulage companies history; but what happened to the snake you ask? Well our animal-loving truck driver coaxed it into a bag, took it to have a holiday at the local vet for a week, and then drove it back up to the farm the next week when he had another job on. What a tale that snake had to tell the folks back home!

Hare today – Gone Tomorrow

Slightly further from home, a Russian driver who worked for a number of British haulage companies was delivering his load out along a quiet road, when from nowhere a huge hare leapt out in front of his truck. He slammed on the brakes and ground to a halt believing he had hit the hare and, in all likelihood, killed it. Wanting to make sure the hare was not suffering, he got down from the cabin to move it off the road, but it was nowhere to be found. He searched the area for a good few minutes then deduced that he must have just clipped it or it had been completely lucky and escaped altogether. It wasn’t until the next morning that the truth was revealed. As he went to climb into his truck a movement caught his eye and upon closer inspection, he discovered the hare, alive but not so much kicking, trapped in the radiator grill. How it survived we will never know, but survive it did, and after a delicate operation to remove the grill at the local garage, the hare was released. Chances are he’ll look next time he wants to cross the road!

Wrong Way Go Back

The worst kind of stowaway, as far as haulage companies are concerned, is the human kind, and it can be all too real a problem on international routes. But one has to spare a thought for an unfortunate would-be stowaway who climbed up behind the wind guard of a lorry in Calais which he thought would catch him an easy ride into the UK. The truck was facing towards ol’ Blighty at the time, but unbeknown to the hapless hitcher, it was in fact bound for the Balkans. After about 50 miles he realised his error and began banging frantically on the roof of the cabin. The shocked driver helped the shaken man down but he didn’t stick around for too much of an explanation. He mumbled, “Very sorry”, and scuttled off into the French countryside. One can only speculate as to where he ended up…

Call signs usually come about from someone’s appearance, a funny incident on the road, a personality trait (or defect!) or a drivers surname. Usually in the delivery work industry, a nickname or call sign is decided for you by mate or fate and you don’t have a say, and is designed to give everyone else a huge laugh at your expense! So we reckon it’s time to jump on the bandwagon and make your delivery work more fun by checking out a few of our oldies, goldies (and a few downright strange ones!) and getting inspired to think up your own to make fun of your mates! Go on – you know you want to!

(By the way we take no credit or discredit for any of these real examples found on the web!)

Stormin ol’ Norman – Well obviously – but turns out she’s a young woman! Go figure!
Twin Haemaroid Floyd – What? They come as twins?
Yogi Bear and Boo Boo – For the big hairy trucker and his little mate, or maybe it was his wife.
Lord Lucan and Nanny – As in ‘You’ve got Lord Lucan here, with Nanny riding shotgun.’ (Mmm, he’s well read if a little tasteless)
Cue ball – A popular one with the shiny head brigade. (Seemingly very prevalent in haulage companies worldwide!)
Vanilla Smoothie – See above but pasty white as well! Bless!)
Kermit the Brick – Fluorescent road kill?
Slaughter the Transporta – Hope his haulage work is better than his spelling.)
Daughter of Slaughter – We kid you not! (Or was it Dorta of Slaughter?)
The Ginger Ninja – Look out he’s over there! No there!
Tex the Lex – apparently the name given to a dyslexic Texan trucker who couldn’t read road signs, and ended up causing a massive pile up on a US motorway! He was blacklisted from hundreds of haulage companies! Not nice you guys!
Hutch – Always travelled with his pet rabbits in the cabin of his truck. Mmm, what’s up with THAT doc?
Munchkin Clutchpedal – A cute little guy who had to have the clutch pedal modified in his truck before any haulage companies would take him on!
Tea Pot Teddy – Short and stout – say no more!
Slim Jim – Well, the cap fit twenty years ago, but now this guy is HUGE! Beware – names stick!
Two-timer Tom – Not a womaniser, just a guy who could never get his delivery work right the first time!
Prehistoric Haemaroid – Nope, no reason! Apparently this guy just said he wanted something no one else would think of, and he wanted to make people laugh. Job done!

So next time you find yourself caught in the granny lane, get yourself out over the zipper, put the hammer down and see if you can think up a few good ones of your own! Ten-four Big Buddy, I think we got us a convoy!

Lyall Cresswell is the Managing Director of Haulage Exchange, the leading online trade network for the road transport industry across the UK and Europe. It can be used in the domestic and international markets to buy and sell road transport services such as delivery work and freight exchange.

According to the RAC, the clamping of cars by private companies could be an infringement of the 1998 Human Rights Act. The motoring organisation says that the fines charged by private individuals are usually exorbitant and unjustifiable. The fines for parking on private land are also demanded without any type of legal process and this is something that the RAC would like to see changed. The changes would certainly help people with courier jobs, as there is nothing worse than returning from a delivery to find a large yellow wheel clamp placed on your beloved van.

The move comes after the launch of a Daily Mail campaign to demand that the government strengthens regulations on private wheel clamping and ultimately makes it illegal, as it is in Scotland. Once the newspaper introduced the campaign it was simply inundated with stories of unjust instances of car clamping. A man on a courier job who found his van clamped after delivering some documents, made the headlines when he took a sledgehammer to the clamp and broke it off himself to avoid paying the exorbitant fine and another man found his car clamped after popping into a private office block to pay off his girlfriend’s wheel clamp fee. The price charged by private individuals doesn’t seem to be in any way consistent. Whilst some people have reported having to pay £75.00 fine to free a car from the car park of an office block, another woman wrote into the paper describing how she had to pay a £375.00 fee.

So how exactly is wheel clamping illegal? Chris Elliott, a barrister for the RAC, argues that the concept of one citizen punishing another is alien in English law and that the purpose of clamping is simply to prevent a vehicle being on private land without permission. Therefore, Chris argues, clamping is perverse as it perpetuates the harm caused to the landowner which is ultimately a self-inflicted wound. The only tactic is to punish or deter, both of which have no foundation in English law. This is because they are based on a notion that one person cannot punish another and that punishment is a power reserved solely for the State. There are further arguments by barristers that the practice of clamping is also contradictory to protocol 1 of the Human Rights Law, which states that every person is entitled to the peaceful enjoyment of his possessions and should not be deprived of them, unless in accordance with English law.

The Home Office is in the midst of proposing a new licensing regime for private clampers. However, with arguments that the very action of depriving people of their vehicle is illegal, it seems unlikely that the changes will now go ahead. With the RAC strongly arguing the legal elements of clamping, it seems extremely likely that the very act of private wheel clamping will be made illegal. And for us in courier jobs, it’s certainly a case of the sooner, the better.

Lyall Cresswell is the Managing Director of Courier Exchange, the world’s largest neutral trading hub for the Sameday courier and express freight exchange industry. Over 2,500 transport exchange businesses are networked together through their website, trading courier jobs and capacity in a safe ‘wholesale’ environment.

Margaret Island

Although we can’t strictly drive right past this on our Budapest Airport to city route, I always point it out as a place for young (and not so young) lovers to go. Margaret Island is a 2km long island set in the middle of the Danube which separates the two sides of the city. It has a lovely calming atmosphere and you can either stroll through the landscaped garden admiring the profusion of flowers; or simply sit quietly in one of the bars with a cocktail and watch the world go by. But the most romantic way to see the entire island is to hire a pedal carriage and cycle at your leisure along the beautifully kept paths and walkways.

Széchenyi Thermal Bath

I always tell my clients looking for romance about this amazing place. It is fabulous for relaxing and unwinding after a day spent sightseeing, and I actually even had one elderly gentleman and lady ask me to take them there on their way back to Budapest Airport! To city workers and tourists, these thermal baths are a haven of comfort and relaxation, and the decor of the building itself is worth the visit alone. Its neo-classic silhouette presides over three outdoor thermal pools complete with fountains and marble statues. It is a wonderful place for lovers to go and drift lazily in the warm, tranquil waters before an early evening stroll along the river.

A Candlelit River Cruise

If I’m driving people at night on the Budapest Airport to city route, the first thing they see as we near the centre is the beautiful Danube River. It is truly the most stunning aspect of the city, dividing the two sides neatly in half. In my opinion, the ultimate romantic thing to do on a visit to Budapest is to go on a candlelit dinner cruise with the one you love. I have recommended so many couples to do this because I know from personal experience how lovely it is. Every year, on our anniversary, my wife and I take the same cruise along the Danube and every year we agree; our beautiful city just gets better and better.

These are just three of my favourite romantic ideas for a visit to Budapest, but in reality, the entire city is built on romance and you cannot escape her magical spell. Viva l’amore.

Gergely Garami is a driver for Shuttle Direct on the Budapest airport to city route. They provide pre-booked shuttles to major destinations all over Europe. Wherever you travel, Shuttle Direct can make sure that you don’t miss your car on your holiday abroad.

Thank you for visiting Travel Articles Directory. Feel free to use any of our travel writing articles for your own website, on the condition that you also take the link we have included in the text. Check back for more travel writing soon; we’re uploading more original travel articles all the time!

Left is Right and Right is Left

The first rule of doing delivery work in Europe is one that you are hardly likely to forget, particularly as the areas around the ferry ports tend to be littered with signposts pointing it out. However, driving on the opposite side of the road than you’re used to can certainly take a while to get your head around. In particular, you might find yourself getting a little confused the first few times you go round a roundabout, or when you use a slip-road going on or off the motorway. Keep your head and the other vehicles on the road will keep you on the right side of the road (but not literally.)

Priority on the Right

In Britain, when pulling out from a side road we have to wait until the road is clear in both directions. However the rules are slightly different in Europe. Remember when you’re doing delivery work across the waters that unless there is a road sign stating otherwise, you are obliged to give way to any traffic approaching from the right, even if they are pulling out from a seemingly very minor road. Keep an eye out for this, or you might get a nasty shock as someone pulls out in front of you. However, be sure to take care when turning out of side roads yourself, in case of people less clued up about driving on the continent than you.

Check Your Speed

There are two things to remember about speed limits in Europe. Firstly, when you see a sign for 130 on the motorway, you might just put your foot down. But bear in mind that speed limits are in fact shown in kilometres per hour, rather than miles per hour. So don’t be in too much of a hurry to get your delivery work done or you might just wind up with a speeding ticket. Secondly, it’s important to remember that within Europe, there are varying speed limits according to the weather conditions. For example, when it rains in France, the motorway speed limit goes down from 130 km/h to 110 km/h, whilst on dual carriageways and roads with central reservations, the speed limit changes from 110 km/h to 100 km/h. It is worth making a note of these changes and keeping them to hand, just in case the heavens decide to open whilst you’re doing your delivery work.

Choose Your Dates

It pays to be aware of restrictions on driving on certain days in Europe. These can change from country to country, though France, Spain and Italy all restrict vehicles with a gross weight greater than 7.5 tonnes from the roads on Sundays and public holidays. So check the calendar before you set out or you might just find that your delivery work is delayed until Monday morning.

If you’re planning to take your delivery work across the waters to Europe, its well worth avoiding accidents and mishaps by doing your homework before you get in the cab. Though differences between the rules of the road in various parts of Europe may only be subtle, not knowing them can certainly hold up and hinder your deliveries.

Lyall Cresswell is the Managing Director of Haulage Exchange, the leading online trade network for the road transport industry across the UK and Europe. It provides services for delivery work to buy and sell road transport and freight exchange in the domestic and international markets.

Thank you for visiting Travel Articles Directory. Feel free to use any of our travel writing articles for your own website, on the condition that you also take the link we have included in the text. Check back for more travel writing soon; we’re uploading more original travel articles all the time!

It’s enough to make your heart sink. You’re on the motorway when the all-too-familiar cascade of brake lights comes towards you. Before long, you’re at a standstill. In this situation, you might feel for the trucker whose load is spoiling, or sympathise with the self-employed couriers whose jobs are nearing deadline; perhaps you’ll just feel the perennial frustration of the commuter. But you will probably also start to wonder about the cause of the delay: could it be road works, an accident, a police speed check?

Well, you won’t be surprised to hear that mathematicians have also asked these questions. There’s even a Mathematical Society of Traffic Flow. It is not just the frustration factor or the safety issue that make traffic jams a worthy research topic; increasing traffic flow is becoming an ecological and economic issue. When traffic is static, greenhouse gases are emitted needlessly; and for people who drive for a living, traffic jams can actually be costly. When vehicles are stopping-and-starting or sitting stationary with the engine running idle, they have reduced fuel efficiency. This can be costly for ‘the little guy’ who has to pay for his own fuel, like those driving self-employed courier jobs every day.

A Wave of Jam

Enter the Japanese scientists to the fray! In a study reported by New Scientist magazine, physicists have examined the anatomy of a traffic jam and been able to recreate the road conditions that can cause a seemingly spontaneous jam to appear. They have shown that even with cars moving at a relatively constant speed, a traffic jam can build from almost nothing.

The problem is that when the distance between cars varies just a fraction, the smallest responses by drivers create something of a domino reaction with tiny changes in speed having a cumulative effect. So when the long-distance trucker slows – on a hill perhaps – the self-employed courier behind him brakes a little, as does the coach driver behind him, and so on, until the stressed-out commuter five miles back finds himself at a standstill.

The scientists refer to the phenomenon as a shockwave. As soon as distance between vehicles begins to vary, each driver in turn must adapt his speed or distance from the other cars, and the necessary adjustment increases as it goes back from car to car. Remarkably, mathematicians have even been able to calculate that this shockwave travels backwards at around 20km/hr (about 12 miles per hour).

Small Change – Big Result

The painful truth is that these ’shockwave’ jams are caused mostly by there being too many cars on the road. Furthermore, it means the smallest variation in traffic flow can snowball into a full-blown jam.

In February 2010, a small variation that had a big effect in the city of Brisbane was a family of ducks crossing the road during rush hour. The two adult ducks were hit first and their young scattered in panic. Many ducklings were killed as cars were unable to stop in time. As the motorists tried to negotiate around the birds running in all directions, the traffic quickly piled up and everyone in Brisbane was late getting to their jobs. A Courier-mail journalist was there to photograph the scene, and captured the surviving duckling. The whole incident was a tragic twist of the ’sitting duck’ idiom and the ‘why did the chicken cross the road?’ joke. Answer: to screw up the traffic.

It seems traffic jams are a mathematical phenomenon, a logistical conundrum, and a modern headache that won’t soon disappear.

Lyall Cresswell is the Managing Director of Courier Exchange, the world’s largest neutral trading hub for the same-day courier and express freight exchange industry. Over 2,500 transport exchange businesses are networked together through their website, trading self-employed courier jobs and capacity in a safe ‘wholesale’ environment.

Jack and his Lumber

Here is the story about a guy who had regular transport contracts to deliver timber from one end of the country to the other. Jack had been working non-stop for a week and was seriously tired, but he decided to push on in order to get back home for his wife’s birthday. About half an hour away from home his blinks started to get longer and longer. He turned up the radio full blast and opened all the windows but still he was struggling to stay awake. Then, as he opened his eyes from one dangerously extended blink Jack saw, clear as day, a man in a red and black check shirt sitting in the passenger seat. The guy leant towards him and whispered, “Wake up Boyo.” The massive shock suddenly jerked Jack wide awake. There was no further sign of the man, but Jack made it home more alert than he had ever been. A couple of weeks later he was recounting the story to his Mum. Without a word, she went to her box of old photos and brought out a tatty faded black and white photo of man in a check shirt. Jack went pale – it was his mystery man. Turns out it was Jack’s grandfather who had died before Jack was born, and because of a family rift was never mentioned. (Jack had never seen the photo) It was the description of the shirt that twigged the mother’s memory because apparently he had worked as a timber cutter and he never wore anything else except a red and black check lumber shirt… Jack never saw him again, but he never drove his transport contracts tired again.

A Guiding Golden Arch

There’s another story of a young rookie truck driver who had got himself a fantastic transport contract and had a lot to prove. A few of his colleagues had told him he was taking on too much for a new guy, but he stubbornly pushed on. About 70 miles from his final destination late at night he saw, in the far distance over a 20 mile winding range, the famous golden arches of a fast food truck stop. Perilously close to sleep, he thought how nice it would be to be able to stop there for a reviving coffee. The next thing he remembered was waking up and feeling a strange pressure on his arm turning the wheel to the left. The truck was turning off the road straight underneath the golden arches. The young rookie had no memory of the drive over the range and to this day believes an unseen hand guided him to safety. And guess what’s his favourite food…..

Radio GaGa

Our last sleepy tale is of the elderly farmer who was delivering livestock in the country. He had a rickety old rig but it was all he could afford and he had managed to get a few small transport contracts in his local area. One particularly nasty winter afternoon he had popped home for lunch mid-job. As the cows shivered out in his truck, his wife plied him with a big meaty pie and mash and two steaming mugs of milky hot chocolate. After lunch he set off to deliver the livestock all warm and snug from the inside out, but the combination of food, a warm cabin and the hot chocolate caused him to become dangerously sleepy. Suddenly, there was a screeching rendition of “Wake Up Little Suzie” blaring out of the radio. The farmer came to with a shock with barely a split second to swerve out of the path of an oncoming tractor. Shaking, he thanked his lucky stars for the blare of the music until he remembered… his old truck never had a radio…

Lyall Cresswell is the Managing Director of Haulage Exchange, the leading online trade network for the road transport industry across the UK and Europe. It provides services and transport contracts to buy and sell road transport and freight exchange in the domestic and international markets.