Driver investment pays off for UK haulier

Training and services reduce fuel consumption and vehicle wear for Spiers & Hartwell.

UK haulier Spiers & Hartwell is enjoying a number of benefits following its investment in Scania Driver Training, Scania Fleet Management and tachograph services. The company has already seen a 12 percent increase in fuel efficiency, better staff morale and less wear and tear on its vehicles.

Spiers & Hartwell transports chilled produce all over the UK from its base in Worcestershire, so reliability and uptime are crucial to its business. The haulier operates an all-Scania fleet, and its relationship with Scania started back in the 1980s with an LB110, before the haulier began purchasing the new 2-series trucks. It is currently running 50 Scania trucks.

Scania information flow was “like turning on a tap”

The decision to invest in driver-related services came after the company’s Transport Manager Charlie Hartwell learned more about the telematics packages available from Scania and organised a trial on four of vehicles. Spiers & Hartwell has now been using Scania Fleet Management and Scania Tachograph Services for just over a year.

“There’s no hassle in getting set up as everything was available on the vehicles already; it was like turning on a tap,” says Hartwell. “We were getting the information we needed from a number of different systems and sources which was time consuming and overly complicated. Now, we have everything in one place.”

Spiers and Hartwell can now produce individual reports on drivers and vehicles. “We can track their driving styles. It’s helpful as individual elements can be identified, and improvements can be made. It gives us a level of detail that we’ve never had before,” says Hartwell.

Giving drivers a head-start

The haulier wanted to complement the data with driver training to give drivers a head-start on getting the best out of the vehicle. Nearly all the full-time drivers at Spiers & Hartwell have now completed the driver training programme in conjunction with Scania, and so have members of the management team. “We’ve seen the benefits of the training and we’d do it again,” says Hartwell.

He notes that a driver can use GBP 120 (EUR 134) worth of fuel a week just idling – multiply that by a fleet of 50 and it soon adds up. “Educating our drivers about the new vehicles that they’re driving and how far they’ve come technologically means that they get more out of them and we can make considerable cost savings,” he says.

As well as fuel savings, the company’s fuel efficiency has also improved, with the fleet regularly achieving 29.7 litres per kilometre – an improvement of 12 percent in comparison to one year ago. The vehicles have also experienced less wear and tear, making it a highly successful investment.