LIFE WITHOUT TRUCKS: THE IMPACT OF A TEMPORARY DISRUPTION OF ROAD FREIGHT TRANSPORT ON A NATIONAL ECONOMY

Journal of Business Logistics, 2006 by McKinnon, Alan

These sectors include grocery retailing, food services, fuel supply, healthcare, banking, postal services, parcels, beer and waste disposal. More general consideration will be given to the impacts on agriculture, manufacturing industry, the construction industry, office-based services sector and Britain's external trading links.

1. Grocery retailing and food services

The major grocery retailers are responsible for roughly 4.5% of all truck traffic, approximately 9% of articulated vehicle traffic (Institute of Grocery Distribution 2004; Department for Transport 2005). Their deliveries are highly time-sensitive and keep the shops replenished with minimal inventory. Without trucks, stocks of produce, chilled products and fresh meat in supermarkets would be very rapidly depleted. These products are cross-docked at the DC and despatched to the supermarkets within a few hours. No inventory of fresh produce is held. Shops get delivery of these products from suppliers or their DCs within 24 hours and on average receive around 1.5 deliveries per day containing these items (Institute of Grocery Distribution 2004) (Table 1). Fast moving ambient-temperature products generate a similar frequency of delivery, though typically have slightly shorter order lead times both at the primary (factory to DC) and secondary (DC to shop) levels. Within one day of the trucks being withdrawn, the availability of fresh products in supermarkets would be sharply reduced. DCs hold inventory of less perishable products, but these could not be transported to the shops.

One grocery product which would quickly run out of stock is bread. A large proportion of the bread consumed in the UK is baked in factories and distributed via non-stockholding cross-docking points to shops. Bread is normally ordered on day 1, baked on day 2 for delivery early in the morning of day 3. Shops sell most of that day's supply of bread within 24 hours. In-store bakeries also receive their supply of ingredients from the major bakery groups on a short order lead time and hold only 1-2 days stock of these inputs. The major supermarkets would therefore run out of bread within a day or two.

The disruption of the grocery supply chain would have a variable impact on the population. Ninety-two (92 percent) of UK consumers do their main grocery shopping in supermarkets and just over half of them shop on a weekly basis (Institute of Grocery Distribution 2004). As a mean of 7.3 days elapses between each major supermarket shopping trip, one might tentatively conclude that the average household would be likely to hold sufficient inventory of basic grocery products for the duration of the stoppage. This depends on the scheduling of the disruption relative to the weekly shopping cycle, as most grocery shopping is done at the weekend. Analysis of average shopping data also conceals wide variations in household purchasing behaviour. Approximately a third of consumers buy groceries from supermarkets more frequently than once a week while 52% top-up with grocery purchases from convenience stores at least twice during the week (Figure 2). Important differences also exist between socio-economic and ethnic groups. For example, households in higher socio-economic brackets tend to shop for groceries less frequently, buy in greater bulk and hold larger stocks of these products at home (Institute of Grocery Distribution 2004). People in rural areas, regardless of their social class, also tend to hold larger stocks of grocery products. These groups would be better placed to cope with the emptying of supermarket shelves than poorer families and elderly citizens, particularly in urban areas, who tend to shop more regularly for smaller amounts. While it is very unlikely that anyone would go hungry because of the stoppage, some groups might have to make significant changes to their diet.