Lowery Ltd – 150th FORS Gold Operator

Lowery Ltd is the principal operating company within the Lowery Group, gaining a reputation for quality and service in over 68 years of civil engineering.

Lowery has undertaken civil engineering works of all types, always responding to market changes and developments. It currently focuses its activities in the Rail sector. Our principal geographic areas of activity are the South and South East of England. Head Office is located geographically central to its area of operations, at Chertsey, Surrey with outlying offices to support its ongoing major projects. Kevin Griffiths, Compliance & SHEQ Manager, explains ‘Lowery Limited have increased our MPG from 33MPG across the fleet in 2016 to 36MPG in 2017. It might not sound a lot, but 36MPG is really good considering most of our work is in and around London and comprises both HGV and van usage.

Despite increasing the number of miles across the fleet from 549732 miles in 2016 to 825405 miles in 2017, our Traffic Incidents and Collisions have increased by only 1. This is a 29% improvement over the 2016 figures and equates to an additional 26,293 miles between incidents across our fleet. We have also maintained our zero injury accident stats in the past 12 months through FORS.

Lowery came across FORS when tendering for work across London. When we looked at the requirements and benefits of joining the scheme we saw that they fitted in perfectly with our ethos of improving safety whilst complementing our drive to improve fuel efficiency and reduce our environmental impact

We take compliance and safety very seriously so we achieved our Bronze , Silver and Gold Accreditations first time. FORS did help us by providing training and tools that improved our policies and procedures.

The performance management toolkit really helped us set our targets for reducing our carbon footprint and improving our MPG. FORS has helped us improve our filing systems and procedures.

‘FORS has helped us achieve compliance and safety across our transport fleet.’ – Kevin Griffiths, Compliance & SHEQ Manager.

FORS workshops have been a practical way of both improving our knowledge and learning from others. We have implemented a driving style league table using data from our fleet telematics system which is shared with our drivers on a weekly basis. Our drivers have responded and using a Red/Amber/Green scoring system have seen improvements in driving standards, moving from an initial even spread of drivers within the Red/Amber and Green zones to the majority of drivers falling within the Green zone.’’

‘FORS has driven improvements in driving style across our fleet.’ – Kevin Griffiths, Compliance & SHEQ Manager.

Gaining FORS Gold Accreditation shows how dedicated we are as a company to improving road safety and the safety of all vulnerable road users in London as well as nationally. We will continuously use what FORS has taught us to help reduce our carbon footprint and make the roads so safer for everyone that uses them. We have also managed to make a significant saving by reducing our fuel usage and improving our MPG. We have also maintained our zero injury accident record achieved last year.

• Lowery ensure that our drivers are subject to regular health and fitness reviews. Our drivers attend occupational health medicals which include eyesight and general health assessments which help validate their fitness to drive.
• We have increased our fleet size from 43 to 61 vehicles over the last year, recruiting an additional HGV driver along the way. Our strategy for recruiting drivers ensures that we engage in industry initiatives to encourage new drivers into the industry. All drivers are provided with either Van Smart or Safe Urban Driving training through FORS approved training providers.
• Noise assessment – our vehicles have been risk assessed for noise and all drivers are encouraged to turn engines off when idling. Vehicles are monitored for idling by our fleet telematics system allowing us to target initiatives against drivers where necessary. Lorry loading operations can be noisy when the lorry cranes are being used. These operations are carried out away from local housing wherever possible, with engines switched off between operations.
• We are keen to embrace new technologies with regard to our transport fleet. New vehicles are currently purchased with Ad-blue systems to help reduce pollution. Our operations require that vehicles have an operational range of at least 300 miles between refuelling / recharging. Current technologies for electric vehicles do not meet these requirements but we are aware that the range of such vehicles is continuously improving. We are closely monitoring the situation and are keen to adopt electric vans into our fleet as soon as a viable alternative to diesel becomes available.
• In order to make continual fleet improvements we will continue to purchase Euro VI vehicles as this will help our company to reduce the impact our transport fleet has on the environment.

Gaining FORS Gold Accreditation shows how dedicated we are as a company to improving road safety and the safety of all vulnerable road users in London as well as nationally. We will continuously use what FORS has taught us to help reduce our carbon footprint and make the roads so safer for everyone that uses them.

Twitter: @LoweryLtd