Show transporter saves costs and carbon with Krone Mega City trailer

UK event transport specialist Event Ground Support (EGS) has cut costs and its carbon footprint with Krone’s new 11-metre Mega City Dry Liner trailer.

The company typically moves cameras, screens, lighting and audio equipment to concerts, festivals, inner-city theatres and other entertainment locations. EGS operates a mixed fleet of vehicles from small vans to 15m trailers including Krone trailers, and also works with a number of contractors.

Managing director, Kevin Webb, was looking for a new vehicle to handle urban duties, where high volume and manoeuvrability are prerequisites, and so looked to Krone.

“At the time, we were looking for an 18 Tonne rigid for urban areas or a nine-metre urban trailer,” he said. “Krone’s area sales manager, Alan McKee, came along and said, ‘we have an 11-metre mega with the rear-steer lifting axle,’ and I thought, ‘that’s a big trailer to be getting into those places,’ so we tested it.

“What swung it was that we could get the City Liner into places where you wouldn’t dream of putting a trailer. A real test recently was a customer requested 26t Rigid to load from the rear entrance of The London Palladium. We felt this would be great test for the 11m urban.

“To gain access you have to dodge sleepers, flowerpots and posts. Our experienced driver drove the trailer in with ease and reversed to the rear doors. Leaving was a different situation and required a little more patience with the driver making few shunts and raising of trailer to clear the posts. Once in, one of the crew at the Palladium said, ‘how did you get that round there?’”

The Mega City Dry Liner trailer offers greater degrees of flexibility, manoeuvrability and capacity than rigid vehicles. It is fitted with a front lifting axle and a rear-steer axle, rendering it capable of accessing areas that are out of bounds to both larger and smaller trucks.

At 11 metres, the body is two metres longer than those of conventional 18- or 26-tonne rigids and has a payload capacity of around 19 tonnes – roughly double that of a conventional rigid truck – and a gross vehicle weight of 30 tonnes.

The trailer’s greater capacity and flexibility have also allowed EGS to cut costs and emissions by putting fewer vehicles on the road, which also reduces loading times.