JS Lowrie Haulage Ltd – Going for Gold

JS Lowrie Haulage Ltd is an independent, family owned business providing a variety of top quality aggregate solutions, across London, Hertfordshire and East Anglia. Based at Welling in Kent, we supply a diverse range of materials and services for construction, building and large scale civils projects across the UK. Specialising in waste disposal services for both inert, non-hazardous waste and hazardous materials.  As Managing Director, I am then elected Fuel and Emissions Champion for JS Lowrie Haulage LTD I recognise just how crucial FORS is to our Company. As a company, We have reduced our accidents to zero which is a 100% improvement compared to our baseline year while increasing our MPG across the fleet by 24.88% for the same period.

We discovered FORS while tendering for work across London. When we looked at the requirements and benefits of joining the scheme we saw that they merged perfectly with our own ethos of actively improving safety whilst complementing our drive to improve fuel efficiency and reduce our environmental impact

As a company, we take compliance and safety very seriously. With this in mind, we achieved our Bronze and Silver Accreditation first time. We were supported by FORS as they provided both training and tools that delveloped our policies and procedures.

The performance management toolkit was very beneficial as it enabled us to set our targets for reducing our carbon footprint and accidents. In addition to this, we also have regular managerial meetings to discuss our fuel usage and try and find out where we could reduce costs even further. FORS has also helped us improve our filing systems and procedures.

‘FORS has helped us achieve compliance and safety.’ – John Lowrie Managing Director.

Each of our 9 vehicles are fitted with 360 degree cameras, near side proximity sensors and audible turn left alarms, Class IV, V, VI Mirrors, Fresnel Lenses, Flashing beacons on the roof of our cabs, cyclist safety stickers. All our drivers have completed all DCPC training and Safer Urban Driving courses – we tapped into the FORS network of training providers and safety equipment providers to save money. Each of our drivers has also completed the FORS E-Learning modules.

‘We have reduced our Accidents to zero in the last 12 Months.’ – John Lowrie Managing Director

Once we had achieved Bronze accreditation, we were determined to progress to Silver because we were already doing everything that was required for the Silver accreditation. For example, all of our vehicles already had all the safety equipment fitted and our drivers had already completed the Safe Urban Driving Course. Once we were Silver accredited we had a renewed determination to show best practise and make ourselves standout from our competitors and go for the Gold accreditation.

We have reduced our accidents which meant our insurance premiums also reduced. We are aiming to improve on our Carbon Footprint by making sure our driver selects the best possible route to our sites and reduce our Idling across the Fleet too.

*Annual improvement in MPG and Incidents per 100,000 Kms

• Although the FORS Standards recommend drivers complete a comprehensive Medical Declaration every 5 years, I insist all of my drivers complete this comprehensive Medical Declaration on an annual basis because we truly see the value of this declaration. It is mentioned in the drivers handbooks, which also forms part of their contract of employment, that it is the drivers’ responsibility to inform the company ASAP if they develop any medical conditions or are prescribed any medication that might affect their ability to drive. Once a driver has informed the company we would investigate it and if we feel the driver needs to obtain a letter from his GP informing us that he is fit to drive again, we will request this. We will only let him drive a company vehicle once he has received the letter and given it to the company. We would then decide on how often we needed to complete a driver assessment on the driver going forward.
• We have recently implemented a Recruitment Policy that outlines that we, as a company, would look at employing young drivers/ employees where possible and training them up to do what is required in a particular role.
• We have no work carried out at our operating centre as all servicing etc is carried out at main dealers. As a tipper fleet we never need to do any loading/ unloading in our operating yard as we leave our yard empty go to site collect waste then dispose of it and bring a empty vehicle back at the end of the day (see our Noise Assessment case study for details). The only noise is generated while our vehicles are idling when the drivers are doing their defect checks. Other than that, there is no other noise on site.
• Unfortunately, as we run 32 Tonne Tipper lorries, we are currently unable to replace any of our vehicles with Electric or Hybrid. But we have been replacing all our lorries with the Euro 6 engines which has had a huge impact in reducing our carbon footprint and increased our MPG across the whole fleet.

As a company, we are always actively looking at the new low entry cabs and seeing if we can replace our current fleet with them when we come to replace them. But again looking at whole life costs, it is not cost effective for us because of the size of our fleet as yet, but hopefully going forward the manufacturers will be reducing the costs (see Alternative Vehicles case study for details)

Achieving FORS Gold Accreditation shows how determined and dedicated we are as a company to improving road safety and the safety of all vulnerable road users both in London as well as nationally. We will continue to use everything we have learned from to help reduce our carbon footprint and make the roads so safer for everyone that uses them.