Road freight and trucking are undoubtedly what keeps the world moving. Haulage associations agree that life as we know it would halt within a week without trucks. Food and medicines would disappear from store shelves. There would be a shortage of raw materials for industries and a need for more fuel for cars, trucks, buses, taxis, motorbikes and all kinds of construction and agricultural equipment. Perhaps the future will replace trucks with drones or teleportation, or some other disruptive technology, but at the moment, we are dependent on the trucking industry to have all our needs met.
Development over time has given us heavier, longer, more powerful, and faster trucks, and there are more of them than ever before.
Some figures show us that in the European Union, there are more than 6 million trucks in circulation, 3.2 million people work in the road freight transport sector, there are more than 50 truck assembly plants, and almost 300 000 new trucks were sold last year (a year on year increase of more than 16%).
Even though the UK is no longer in the EU, the industry is equally important here as 178 billion tonne-kilometres of goods were moved, and almost 20 billion vehicle kilometres were driven.
Considering all of the above, it is no surprise that regulations for road freight are being scrutinised and developed. One thing that has caught the attention of policymakers is the transportation of dangerous goods or ADR transports. Last year, a truck carrying 38,000 litres of aviation fuel caught fire in the UK. The ramifications of a tanker truck fire has potentially disastrous consequences. Perhaps this is why the UNECE is now looking into regulations demanding fire suppression systems for ADR tanker trucks through their so-called BLEVE group.
Fogmaker is staying ahead of this legislation and already has solutions for FSS in ADR tanker trucks. We are already in discussions with the major OEM truck manufacturers and the policymakers.
Our experience and close cooperation with major truck OEMs have given us valuable insights into what constitutes a fire suppression system optimised for safety, productivity, and usability for owners/operators in the trucking community.
Fogmaker was founded in 1995 and has installed more than 270,000 fire suppression systems globally in all sorts of vehicles and equipment.
As described in ADR 2023, the new demands merely state that certain vehicles (EX/III and flammable liquids) shall be equipped with fire suppression systems. So far, there are no technical specifications for said systems, but ADR 2025 is expected to clarify the regulations. Regulations commenced (voluntarily) on 2023-01-01 and came into force 2029-01-01.
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