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@moth
And the economics of switching to city-centre specific tractor units are a bit less implausible that repacking everything into vans. It would be a logistical challenge, but there could even be savings from optimising long-distance and city centre tractor units differently.
But this is missing construction traffic, so also extend industrial health and safety regulation to road transport. It's crazy that building sites can kill people to get their concrete delivered on time and still claim to meet their lost-time accident targets because the accidents weren't on site.
A while ago there was some media coverage of steered axle trailers. Boffins at some university had come up with an optimal algorithm for steering them - at high speeds they do something clever to avoid tipping or jack-knifing, but at city-centre speeds they steer the trailer wheels to follow the same path as the front wheels. That would mean: if the front wheels haven't run you over, the trailer wheels probably won't either.
There were lots of other potential (non-cycling) benefits too, and as trailers apparently have a relatively short service life, it's a change that could be made much quicker than replacing lorry tractor units. Anyone heard any more about it?
With that kind of technology + long-distance specific tractor units and out-of-town transfer depots, road trains become plausible.