What are modular vehicles? Modular vehicles are designed to transport heavy loads in very versatile vehicles.
What is a mega truck? A mega truck is a large articulated vehicle consisting of a tractor with a 7.8 m long trailer and an additional 13.6 m long trailer.
What is a duotrailer? The duotrailer is a set of vehicles from the Nordic areas, which consist of transporting goods of 31.75 m in length and 70 tons of MMA.
Why are we bringing this new way of driving to Spain? The DGT wanted to implement a new experimental project to authorize the circulation of customers with these trucks for testing and research purposes.
This type of vehicle is competing with the mega-truck category, which is legal in Spain. The mega trucks have more than 6 axles, 25.25 m in length and 60 tons of MMA. This vehicle also needs a special authorization, as mentioned in previous posts.
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What are the advantages of modular vehicles?
The advantages offered by this type of vehicle are as follows:
- Cost reduction, with fuel savings of 25%.
- Best weight distribution per axle with a total of 70 tons per axle distribution
- Lower CO2 emissions per ton and km
- Reduced noise emissions
- Fewer vehicles on the road
- Increased amount of cargo transported, as well as volume to be transported
- Tractor units continue to be used, without change
- No costly investments are required
- Possibility to combine with rail transport
What does the transport sector think of modular vehicle transport?
In order to promote the use of the mega-truck, the World Road Organization (IRU) wants to boost decarbonization by including standards in cross-border operations, something that is not yet being implemented in the European Union.
The megatruck transports much more goods than a standard vehicle, so if instead of three traditional vehicles we make a trip with two megatrucks it reduces not only the number of vehicles on the road, but also the fuel consumption per kilometer. This consumption can be reduced by up to 35%, depending on various factors such as weight and adverse conditions.
This means that, if the use of modular vehicle transport is implemented over time by 30%,CO2 emissions will be reduced by a total of 237 million tons per year.
According to the IRU, if the deployment of these modular vehicles triples by 2050, road freight transport emissions could increase to a total of 700 million tons.
Implementation of modular vehicles in Spain
Currently, there are more than 1,000 mega-trucks traveling on national roads. And more than 100 duotrailers circulating on Spanish roads.
In Spain, the Dirección General de Tráfico carries out an exhaustive and rigorous control for research projects on the operation of modular vehicles that are carried out in universities and R&D laboratories. With this, they manage to obtain clear and significant data on emissions, routes, consumption and itineraries.
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Técnica Superior en Diseño y Edición de Publicaciones Impresas y Multimedia - Artes Gráficas por IES Virgen de la Paloma. Gestor de tráfico en Transvolando.
