I can't work out if this is going to help or hinder.
Any opinions?
Electronic Service Delivery for Abnormal Loads
A new website to help haulage companies plan their journeys when moving abnormal loads has been launched by the Highways Agency. The ESDAL (Electronic Service Delivery for Abnormal Loads) website, aims to cut bureaucracy making it easier for companies to find out who to contact when they need to inform the police and highway authorities about moving large loads.
Currently some 400,000 abnormal indivisible loads (AIL) movement notifications are made to the Highways Agency and 1.5 million route assistance requests made to the police each year, resulting in a significant administrative burden for all parties. Difficulties also arise for hauliers in identifying exactly who to contact prior to moving a load due to changes to contact details, de-trunking orders and area boundaries.
The site offers an on-line mapping system for hauliers to plan their route, and will automatically generate an up-to-date list of the authorities they need to contact. These easily identifiable contacts will ensure more accurate notifications, safer movements and help to simplify the current system. A further three phases will be introduced to the website in due course. These will streamline the process for the police and relevant authorities who ensure that the proposed route is suitable, taking account of the impact on traffic and the bridges to be used, to manage notifications.
The website has been developed for the Highways Agency by Serco Integrated Transport and is designed for all parties involved in moving of abnormal loads.
The four phases of ESDAL delivery are:
Phase 1: Information Website
This is the phase that has just been launched. Hauliers will be provided with a route planning system showing contact details of all structure owning authorities and police forces who need to be notified of AIL movements. The haulier will be able to log in, sketch a route on the multi-scale maps, and the system will then identify who needs to be notified.
Phase 2: Special Orders Routing System
Will help to process special orders more efficiently for hauliers by providing the Highways Agency AIL Team with a system that has improved data and routing software.
Phase 3: On-line Notification
Hauliers will be able to use a "virtual postal service" to notify all AIL movements to the relevant infrastructure owners and Police by web, e-mail or fax. The system will store each notification and proposed route, and enable the appropriate agencies and authorities to assess the route through their ESDAL interfaces.
Phase 4: AIL Movements Portal
Extending the functionality available in phase 3 by providing an assisted route-planning tool encouraging hauliers to use standard or pre-qualified routes.
To use the site, hauliers need to complete an ESDAL registration form which can be downloaded from the website, or obtained by sending their company name and address via email.
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If it is as described, then it can surely only improve the overall situation?
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What\'s for you won\'t pass you by
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Will it stop the daily traffic report "large goods vehicle stuck in the blackwall tunnel"?
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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Sounds a bit much IMO. When I worked for a company that done wide loads, we had a list of all the Police Traffic Dept phone numbers in the UK. Before the load was collected the route had already been pre-determined with all police depts. on the route. Once the load was collected, we the drivers then telephoned the relevant police force, who then came & escorted us to the end of their jurisdication, i.e Strathclyde Police would escort us until we entered Dumfries & Galloway & so forth, who we would then notify that we were in their area & would await a traffic car to escort us onto Cumbria & so forth. Nowadays with police numbers down, they will only escort you if it is an exceptionally wide load, otherwise the haulier will provide an escort using their own vans with orange flashing lights & boards. This new thing seems a bit much as usual when there was nothing wrong with the way we done it.
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I remember complaining to West Yorks Police about an abnormal load that totally messed up the M62 early one evening. Their reponse was that it had left Leeds at 6pm so it wasn't in the rush hour.
I was left with the impression that they didn't know when rush hour was and that a load straddling 2 lanes at 10mph would have no impact on one of the busiest section of the UK's M/way network at that time.
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Electronic Service Delivery for Abnormal Loads A new website to help haulage companies plan their journeys when moving abnormal loads has been launched by the Highways Agency.
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A search on the Highways Agency site fails. Wonderful!!!
www.esdal.com/ gets the info
And the Home button takes you to, guess what, The Highways Agency.
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