FTW 26 February 2010

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FREIGHT & TRADING WEEKLY

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United States

FRIDAY 26 February 2010 NO. 1899

The Freight Community’s Weekly Newspaper for Import / Export decision makers – on subscription

RFA USA works withUK consultants on axle mass issue By Alan Peat In the battle against the department of transport (DoT) proposal to reduce the permissible single rear axle mass for freight vehicles from the current 9 000-kilograms to 8 000-kgs, the Road Freight Association (RFA) has now established a working relationship with

the consultants who are examining the proposal in terms of the department’s road freight strategy, according to the association’s technical and operations manager, Gavin Kelly. The truckers’ main complaint was that this shift would lead to an average payload reduction of 15.72% – varying between 2.45-tonnes and 5.62-t depending on the

size of the road rig. At the same time it would do nothing to cure the continued disintegration of the secondary road network – which was the DoT’s reasoning behind the mass reduction. This deterioration, said the RFA, was due to no periodic maintenance, repair or development having been done over the past few years,

and budget allocations for road works and road-user revenue streams having been appropriated for other programmes. A third reason cited was a lack of foresight and forward planning at departmental level – with the RFA pointing out that many roads were not originally built for either the weight or the traffic volumes now experienced.

Cato Ridge staging depot gains ground

Supply chain performance disappoints

By Joy Orlek

South Africa’s supply chain performance has once again failed the test in several critical areas, according to the 2010 edition of supplychainforesight, an annual independent study conceptualised and sponsored by Barloworld Logistics. See full report on page 3.

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Kate Stubbs … ‘South Africa makes it relatively hard to do business.’ C

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But, despite extensive efforts, there was an initial failure to get any sort of official response from the DoT, except an official hint that the letter outlining the proposal had been released pre-emptively – and was supposed to be examined in terms of the national transport masterplan (Natmap). To page 16

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There are signs of practical progress towards the establishment of a staging depot outside the Port of Durban with a dedicated freight corridor providing speedy transit between port and depot. This follows the recent publication of a tender by the eThekwini Transport Authority inviting interested parties to undertake a route location and traffic impact study for a new road-based freight corridor between the MY

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Port of Durban and Cato Ridge. And a sustainable solution to the access problem may well require that such a corridor be segregated from other roads in the vicinity of the port, according to an industry source. With road congestion outside the Port of Durban showing little sign of resolution, there’s been strong support for the establishment of a staging depot outside the port. It has been under To page 16


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