Traditionally the haulage industry has had a poor environmental image. For many it conjures up images of heavy trucks clogging up already congested roads and particularly large semi-articulated vehicles sharing the roads in built up areas with cyclists, pedestrians and cars. There was a need for a “Green Network”.
The Pallet Network is mindful of this image, while also mindful of the fact that everything in every retail outlet, restaurant and office had to be transported by truck at some stage. Keeping retail prices down entails the shipping of high volumes at the same time, and yet high volume shipping has a poor track record in terms of the environment.
The Pallet Network model directly addresses these issues. Smaller trucks are used in built up areas to effect collections and deliveries. These small trucks can easily access city streets and interact sympathetically with other users in built up areas. In Dublin, these smaller trucks shuttle cargo to the Pallet Network Hub, which is in Blanchardstown. In other counties, these smaller trucks convey local cargo to their depots in 24 locations. Freight is collected in the depot during the day. At the end of the day, the freight is loaded onto large 45 foot double-deck trailers. These double-deck trailers carry 52 pallets of cargo instead of the normal 26, and thereby greatly reduce the number of trucks on the road at any time.
These large ‘Trunking’ vehicles will move (or ‘Trunk’) all freight between the Pallet Network hub in Blanchardstown and the 25 regional depots, as far distant as west Cork and north Donegal. These journeys are all made at night, avoiding traffic queues, and the subsequent wasted fuel consumption.
In addition to this, the Pallet Network model ensures an almost equal balance of cargo on all movements in both directions between the depots and the central hub. Furthermore, the local depots are delivering and collecting far higher numbers of pallets per truck-mile than is normal because they are providing the services not just for their own customers in their area, but also for the customers of all the other network member depots. The consequence of all these factors is far higher numbers of pallets delivered per truck-mile than the traditional systems and methods. Therefore the Pallet Network system has a much lighter carbon footprint than any previous pallet delivery system.
In our most recent innovation we have converted the trunking vehicles operating between the Dublin hub and our sister TPN UK network based In Minworth to gas, and in the process we have reduced emissions by 60%. We are constantly reviewing how we can make our operation environmentally friendly.
The Hub site offices are heated entirely with waste broken pallets in a specially constructed efficient heating systems, and no electricity or gas is used to generate heat in our 30,000 sq ft of offices.
TPN Network services are only available through our TPN members. For all your freight needs we recommend you talk to your local TPN member. You can find them here.