Fraunhofer Study shows: mega trucks would damage the environment

14 May 2009. The German Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research (ISI) has produced the first sound evidence that introducing longer and heavier vehicles (LHVs) would be harmful for the environment. In contrast to earlier studies, the ISI used a theoretical-dynamic approach that went far beyond the field studies that were limited to small areas. The researchers concluded that introducing mega trucks across Europe would result in a considerable shift in the mode of transport to the roads. On this basis, they calculated the mega truck concept’s long-term negative impact on the climate. “We are now hearing from a qualified source something that we have always assumed,” said Martin Roggermann, coordinator of the Europe wide campaign ‘No Mega Trucks!’.

The authors of the ISI study come to the conclusion that LHVs have the potential to reduce greenhouse gas and air pollutants, but only in the short-term. When the modal shift to the roads is taken into account, any savings in CO2 emissions will “soon be more than cancelled out, resulting in a negative impact on the climate”. Campaign head Roggermann commented: “Larger goods vehicles will result in less CO2? We have always thought this was a rather naïve assessment of the situation. The spurious argument that mega trucks will benefit the environment was a feint from the very beginning. In reality it is all about winning back market share for road freight transport.” The ISI study’s summary could not be more explicit. Its authors wrote that the results “lead us to reject the mega trucks concept for environmental, climate and safety reasons.”

It was only in January that the European Commission produced a controversially debated study that came to an astonishing conclusion: that, on balance, mega trucks should be approved in spite of their negative effect on the environment, traffic and safety. “Scientifically, it was nonsense, but for us it looked as though EU bureaucrats just wanted to prepare the public for the fact that mega trucks will soon be thundering along their roads,” added Roggermann, and called on European transport ministers “not to fall for any pseudo arguments.”

Diverse studies in Germany had previously shown that introducing longer, 60 tonne trucks nationally would lead to a modal transport shift that would primarily negatively impact the railways. The decline in combined transport will be as much as 55 percent. “At least no politician can now claim that mega trucks will be a benefit to the environment. That argument has been clearly disproved for once and for all,” said Roggermann.

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