EU hauliers call on UK to relax cabotage rules

To solve the current UK supply-chain crisis, European haulage firms have appealed to the UK’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson to relax rules on the number of deliveries foreign drivers can make within the UK, also known as cabotage. 

Poland’s president of transport and logistics Maciej Wroński, together with 31 Dutch road transport companies, have called on the UK to change its cabotage rules to allow more EU hauliers to support the UK transport market and increase the productivity per truck, according to Trans.INFO.

The current UK-EU trade deal allows EU hauliers to perform two extra cabotage operations after delivering a load into the UK. This compares to the three cabotage operations that are permitted within EU member states.

Given the Brexit border friction and the likelihood of having to come back with an empty load, many European haulage firms feel they would need to do more cabotage in order to make trips to the UK worthwhile.