January 22 - David Collett, managing director of Collett Transport has confirmed that his company's experience of the latest version of the UK Highways Agency's (HA) new Electronic Service Delivery for Abnormal Loads (ESDAL) programme has been poor.
The new electronic system that allows heavy haulage companies to notify the authorities about abnormal loads - as reported here on November 23 - is more time-consuming to use than traditional procedures, Mr Collett says and suggested improvements supplied to the HA seem to have been ignored.
Mr Collett says that: "Although the database of authorities and agencies for the system is good, and the mapping has been improved, a normal common-sense approach of inputting information for load and vehicle dimensions has been totally ignored. We are now left with a complicated non-user-friendly system that is far more time consuming to use, than was ever taken before."
