TORONTO – Before Tory MP Dean Del Mastro launches his campaign to try and get long combination vehicles off the road, maybe he should learn a little more about them, suggests the head of Canada’s largest trucking association.

As todaystrucking.com pointed out this week, Del Mastro, a self-described rail buff, conveniently didn’t mention the environmental and operational benefits of LCVs when discussing with the Globe and Mail his "public awareness" campaign called "Trains Belong on Tracks."

So, Canadian Trucking Alliance CEO David Bradley has volunteered to give Del Mastro a lesson on the combo units and invited the Peterborough, Ont. MP to sit down with him to discuss the facts on LCV use in Canada, "their productivity, safety and environmental benefits or their impact on the railways."

In a letter to the MP, Bradley says he appreciates that some of Del Mastro’s pro-rail bias may be rooted on a "long and fruitful family connection to the railway industry" as well as his role as chairman of the "railway" caucus.

"However," Bradley wrote, "I did not think the purpose of the caucus was to get involved in competition between modes of transport or to bash other modes."

"The decision on which mode should be used for any shipment rests squarely with the shippers — the manufacturers, retailers and others who rely upon transportation to get their goods to market."

The reality, Bradley points out, is that truck and rail only compete over 10 percent of freight market; with rail dominating long distance shipments of heavy bulk commodities while trucks overwhelmingly service most other time-sensitive freight lanes.

In fact, he adds, there’s far more cooperation between the two modes these days than competitive overlap. 

Lest Not Fret: LCVs will not throw the rail
market off track, Bradley tells pro-rail MP

"My members are in the transportation service business," Bradley wrote in the letter, which was obtained by todaystrucking.com. "At the end of the day, they don’t really care whether the freight moves over-the-road or by the steel wheels so long as the price-service package is transparent to the customer."

Bradley continues: "Not only could the railways not handle our freight (due to lack of capacity), I don’t believe they want it. What they really want to try and accomplish through public policy is to increase the costs of trucking in order to create a higher ceiling on rates."

That, then, would allow railways to raise their rates and still maintain their price advantage.

In the meantime, Bradley laid down some talking points on LCVs for Del Mastro to consider:

Double trailers have traveled Canadian highways for close to 40 years in certain provinces and several U.S. states, so they aren’t anything new.

Weight restrictions on LCVs don’t make them suitable for freight that typically "weights out rather than cubes out" so they stick to moving lighter, higher value products such as auto parts, retail goods and food products – the latter two which are not typically carried by rail.

Tightly controlled LCVs are the safest vehicles on the road in the jurisdictions they operate in. They require special permits and must be piloted by some of the most experienced, best-trained drivers on the road. On this point, Bradley notes studies in Alberta and Saskatchewan that found that LCVs reduce truck-involved collisions.

(Other academic studies in the U.S. show LCVs provide significant improvements in transportation cost, congestion, improved distribution efficiency, and driver availability).

As well, LCVs help meet government mandates to reduce transportation’s carbon footprint. According to a CTA-NRCan study, LCV carriers save 55 percent more fuel over 100 km than single-trailers moving the same volume of freight.

As for LCVs infringing on rail’s market, Del Mastro need not worry, says Bradley:

"LCVs operate in niche markets and are (far) from becoming the ‘last spike’ in the prosperity of the railways."

Bradley says he once offered to conduct a joint study with the railways to examine any possible impact of LCVs on rail, but he never heard back.

"Quite possibly," he says, "because they knew it would not say what they wanted it to."