The new trailers, designed by Scunthorpe based SOMI Trailers, will reduce road traffic congestion, CO2 emissions and increase profitability per trip. And they carry 31% extra, all this without being higher or longer as they fit conventional trucks and loading bays, hence the name SOMI - Same Outside More Inside.

“The new trailers enable four standard HGV journeys to be replaced with just three which saves £120,000 per truck per year with a corresponding reduction in CO2 of 400 tonnes and a return on investment in under 18 months” said founder and Managing Director of SOMI Trailers, Pauline Dawes.

With a grant from regional development agency Yorkshire Forward two trailers were developed; the SOMI Stage Loading Trailer which uses load bars to put an extra layer of pallets above those lowered into the space below.

The second, the SOMI Auto Lifting Trailer, can be loaded without a fork-lift truck. The core technology behind this trailer involves an environmentally friendly air bag which can raise 8 tonnes per deck.

A self levelling system that evenly lifts up to 8 tonnes, despite unequal weight distribution, was developed and patented, as was the air bag, with a total of 17 patents been granted for the whole project to date.

Using the principles applied to formula one cars, including transferring forces from one part to another and aerodynamic efficiency, the SOMI trailer was designed for production. Another Yorkshire Forward grant was used to build a pre-production prototype and after nine months of finite element analysis, a substantive body worthy of a quality reputation was ready.

Before embarking on the SOMI Trailers project Pauline worked at a logistics firm for 20 years. The idea for the project arose when sat in traffic sandwiched between two trailers Pauline questioned why the space underneath trailers was not used.