The 5-tonne VW Crafters purchased by TNT for its trial

Back in March, I reported that parcels operator TNT was trialling 10 5.2-tonne Iveco Daily box vans at its Bradford and Nottingham depots, with a view to using them instead of 7.5t trucks.

TNT is continuing to trial 5 tonne box vans and has now announced a further trial of 1o 5-tonne Volkswagen Crafters at its Bristol depot.

The vans have received a box conversion by Altrincham specialists Cartwright, to the specific requirements of TNT. The Crafters will be based at TNT’s Bristol depot, and were purchased through Volkswagen’s Van Centre in Manchester.

Commenting on the company’s plans to consider a move to 5 tonnes, Steve Davis, National Engineering Manager TNT Express Services UK & Ireland, said that the company would make a decision in the next 12 months:

“Once a decision was made to re-evaluate our current fleet we researched the market place to find manufacturers of five-tonne vehicles that fit the company’s requirements.

We will be monitoring the cabs over an average annual mileage of around 30,000 miles and hope to make decisions about our van capacity and vehicle range in the next 12 months.

As with all our fleet vehicles, the Crafter will be assessed on a variety of points including fuel economy, operational activity, ease of maintenance and driver evaluation.”

TNT delivers up to 150 million items per annum and has the largest individual share of the national market. I don’t know how many 7.5-tonne trucks it currently runs, but the contract to replace the majority of them with 5-tonne box vans would be a big win for any manufacturer, even if it was split into several tranches.

As I’ve discussed previously, rigid sales in the 3.5t – 6.0t and 6.0t – 16t weight categories have seen big increases this year; it will be interesting to see whether the search for lower costs and more careful compliance (in terms of overloading) drives ongoing popularity for the van-sized 3.5t-6.0t class.