Improved sat nav freight system called for
Date: 10 March 2008
Satellite navigation systems often send freight haulage drivers down the wrong roads, and improved information needs to be provided.
Writing in The Huddersfield Daily Examiner, Andrew Baldwin notes that many logistics drivers have a kind of "blind faith" in sat navs, and are sometimes directed "straight into rivers or down no-through roads".
Last week, a freight driver from Lithuania got stuck in Longwood because his sat nav sent him the wrong way.
Mr Baldwin writes: "The question needs to be asked; if sat nav can be programmed to find the shortest and fastest routes why is it not possible to have a programme that includes vehicle weight and width to find a suitable route?
"Councils, freight transport and haulage associations and the Ordnance Survey need to work urgently to get freight map data on to these systems."
Mapping organisation Ordnance Survey admits that there is a problem, with spokesman Tom Satterthwaite saying: "With more HGVs on our roads than ever before, we recognise that having lorries and trucks routed down unsuitable roads is a problem for the hauliers, residents and the local authorities."
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