No it's not another article on bridge strikes !

Not that they aren't welcome, because it's still a big issue (pun intended). This is an article about our measuring systems. Boy oh boy, there are many of them, often mixed, and a source of confusion for anyone, including my Transport Manager CPC students.

Why then do we have so many measuring systems in the transport industry? Well for one we have many things to measure, secondly, British society is hanging on to its past with a grim, yet sometimes justified, determination.

Let's start with the bridge conundrum then. Despite adopting metric as our official measurement system in 1965 our roads are measured in imperial miles, as is anything associated with them. Signposts, warning signs, and prohibitions all feature miles, and even yards, feet and inches when there is the need to break larger measurements down into smaller parts. I doubt that anyone but the staunchest imperial measurer will remember how many yards are in a mile (1,760 to save you Googling). Bridge heights are the exception to that rule as they have been co-signed since 2011 This is because the lack of metric signage was once cited as the main cause of bridge strikes. The increased number of bridge strikes since then now suggests that it wasn't.

Let's not even get started on the railways that pass over them.......they are still measured in miles and chains, a chain being 22 yards (the same as a cricket wicket) So 80 chains in a mile.....I really can't 'fathom' this out.

If you feel the need, the need for speed, then if you are in the transport industry that speed will almost certainly be measured in Kilometres. Why? because our drivers mostly follow the EU driver's hours rules and they require that any measurement is done in metric and vehicles are limited to 90kms per hour........hang on, road signs, including speed limits, are all in imperial miles so how do we work that one out then? Well speedometers in the UK are set to MPH so that we can't use the old 'I don't understand this European speed stuff' excuse when faced with speeding tickets. Odometers record in Km's but most haulage costings are calculated based on unit costs worked out in miles (perhaps because customers like it that way).

On to how we measure vehicles then, and the construction and use regulations are very much metric.........well nearly. Get any transport person to look at a trailer and enquire of them how long it is and the answer will probably be 13.6m ..........but now ask them how high the trailer is and the answer will almost as certainly come back in imperial "ohh about 15 feet 2" Why this mix and match then? Well, the construction and use regulations don't stipulate a maximum height for vehicles, so therefore we slip back to measuring them based on the likelihood of clouting a bridge, which is of course in feet and inches.

Thankfully vehicle weight is almost exclusively talked about in metric these days. Good job too as there are three versions of the ton. The American version, the imperial version and the metric version, which is actually called a tonne to avoid confusion. Take off those rose-tinted glasses when talking about 'old' measurements of weight because todays transport professional has more to to than try to work out what a 'hundredweight' (CWT) is......but in case you were wondering its 8 stone, or around 50kgs. The design spec for the original Morris Minor van was that it should be able to carry a payload of at least four average men, so the 6CWT van was born.

Fancy a flash new Scania? how about the 450? The 450 bit refers to the BHP or brake horsepower. The Scania 335.57Kw doesn't have the same ring to it. So lovers of big-engine power will still quote the imperial and ancient measure of BHP, the ability to lift 550lbs by one foot in one minute.......well not quite, as that equation describes HP, BHP is the 'useful' HP.

Wheel nut torque settings, thankfully largely now set in Newton Metres (Nm) but tyre pressures are still mainly set in Pounds Per Square Inch (PSI) after all in our cars we know that in most cases 30PSi is about right 2.06843 Bar just doesn't seem right.

One of the most perplexing of them all then however is volume of liquid. So the UK adopted metric in 1965 but it wasn't until 1993 that we finally caved into pressure from the EU and started selling fuel in litres rather than gallons, (the cynic may say it is because the British public wouldn't stomach the ￡5 gallon, so litres, because they didn't understand it, sounded better) 23.6L/100kms? anyone? don't mean a lot, but if I said 9mpg we get a much clearer picture of how thirsty that Scania 450 truck is (or isn't).

So a right old hotchpotch of measures to get our heads around not forgetting we have a whole load of new stuff to learn when it comes to EV's For one how do we cost haulage services out when it comes to covering fuel costs? Lets leave that one for another day!