An Alternative to Operation Stack

After a year marred by well-publicised chaos on Britain’s motorways, those involved in the organisation and regulation of logistics services are searching harder than ever for a less disruptive alternative to Operation Stack, which was in effect for over a month during 2015.

What is Operation Stack?

Operation Stack is a protocol by which the M20 is progressively closed to traffic and used instead as parking space for lorries when the normal logistics service is disrupted and faces bottlenecks. This frequently occurs when dangerous weather prevents ferries from travelling, or when technical fault or industrial action closes the Channel Tunnel. In these cases, it is preferable to park the lorries along the M20 so as to prevent massive, virtually unmoving queues forming until the bottleneck is resolved. Should this occur, the transport authorities would be unable to stop the queues from backing up all over the UK so Operation Stack has been designed to accommodate thousands of vehicles.

Why Do We Need an Alternative?

Despite being preferable to the alternative of huge tailbacks, Operation Stack is still enormously disruptive. Over the summer of 2015, Operation Stack is estimated to have cost the country’s economy around £250 million. Additionally, the congestion caused on other roads when the M20 is closed causes enormous disruption to other commercial and non-commercial drivers on the roads at the time.

What is Being Proposed?

Over the years, there have been a number of proposed alternatives to Operation Stack. These have primarily concerned building huge freight parks to store vehicles and pause the normal logistics service with minimal disruption. There has also been a proposal to use Manston Airport as a lorry park, and an attempt to manage congestion through the use of a temporary contraflow section. This, however, was too expensive and unwieldy to be put into action.

From December 2015 to January 2016, Highways England had been actively looking for solutions to the problem. They had proposed building a freight storage area at one of two locations: Stanford West or Stanford North. The current favourite, backed by the Freight Transport Association, is to build the site at Stanford West. According to the FTA, the geographical location and transport connections of Stanford West make it the best place to suspend logistics services with the least disruption possible. The organisation has said that the other option is less than ideal due to the heavy disruption a freight park would cause to local traffic.

What Next?

At time of writing (February 2016), Highways England’s consultation had closed, having yet to reach a decision as to where the park will be built. In the meantime, Manston Airport’s old runway has been put up for use as a temporary fix, should there be any further incidences of disruption before an alternative can be put into place.

While Operation Stack has been a suitable, if imperfect, solution since its introduction almost thirty years ago, the past summer has shown that we will certainly need a better solution to accommodate the rising demands of the UK’s logistics services on the roads.