ULEZ – A controversial topic for the fleet and logistics sector

One of the most controversial topics for fleet and trucking companies in the UK centres around the ULEZ (Ultra Low Emission Zones) charges which have had a huge effect on the transport sector since being introduced.

With commercial companies now forced to pay a fee for any of their trucks to enter the zone/zones, it means these costs get passed onto the end client.

This is a scenario that might be manageable for the large corporates who have vast fleets, and can maybe afford to absorb some of that cost but what about the smaller fleet companies with less than a couple of hundred vehicles?

There is no doubt that the ideal of the ULEZ project is a good one with the health of citizens in London being the priority, but the question is, have the powers that be, really thought about the commercial aspect and potential impact on companies and the employees that rely on them to make a living.

Boris Johnson bought this idea to life back in 2015 when he was London Mayor and we saw what a mess he made during his tenure at Number 10.

We are not knocking Johnson for the concept as it has since been bought to life by current London mayor Sadiq Khan, and it is Khan who is facing the wrath of the disgruntled transport companies affected by this initiative.

ULEZ was bought into play in 2019 but a recent High Court decision is now allowing Khan to extend the boundaries of ULEZ to up to 15 miles outside the centre of the capital city.

Not only is this a danger to transport companies but also to companies that have invested billions of pounds to build “last mile logistics” locations. These warehouses and logistics centres now face a real danger of becoming defunct, and the jobs that were born out of them, are now at risk because of one mans quest to retain some form of power to his cosy seat as London Mayor.

There is also the situation with ULEZ and the non-commercial user.

The BBC reported that there are as many as 280,000 cars registered in outer London that are not compliant – these were figures recently released by TFL (You can read the full BBC article here)

Even with the scrappage scheme outlined by Khan, If you gave all that scrappage money to car owners it would mean 55,000 would be helped What use is that?

There is also an estimated 80,000 small vans that are non-compliant at the moment – that’s nearly 50% of the vans registered to addresses in outer London.

I appreciate this piece will divide a lot of people, but now is the time to think about this strategically, commercially and for the good of all parties. We all want a cleaner living environment for ourselves and our children.

Should that come at the expense of potentially putting people out of work and/or being forced to buy new ULEZ compliant vehicles?

What are your thoughts? I’d love to hear your views.