London, UK: The SMMT and its members are contributing to the work of a newly created Project Committee on the topic of thermally insulated transport.
European standardisation body CEN has created the Committee to work on the development of a new five-part standard on testing methodologies and requirements for thermally insulated means of transport for temperature-sensitive goods. Among the five parts will be those specifically for tankers and swap tankers, truck and trailer bodies including swap bodies, and integrated insulation for vans.
Allan McKenzie, from SMMT’s vehicle legislation department, told Cold Chain News: “The Project Committee will be developing a suite of CEN (EN) standards applicable to thermally insulated means of transport used for temperature sensitive goods in order to limit the heat exchange to / from the ambient conditions. The purpose of the standards is to define the terminology, the specification of requirements, test provisions, dimensioning and marking of various types of insulated construction.”
McKenzie says that the standards are not intended to replace ATP (though they may be referenced in it). Instead, the standards should clarify and unify the testing methods so that comparisons may be commercially more accurate.
“As a member of BSI, SMMT will be representing the interests of its members involved in the manufacture of thermally insulated transport; work in CEN committees is conducted through national standards bodies, i.e. the British Standards Institution (BSI) and the German “Deutsches Institut für Normung” (DIN) standards etc.”
“As a result, SMMT members’ have the possibility to attend committee meetings in person or to provide written contributions through SMMT,” adds McKenzie.
In addition to the UK, other countries represented on the CEN Project Committee at its first meeting in December were France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Finland and Sweden.
