Axle Haulage Ltd, was established in 1988 as a general haulage company, it now operates a modern, fleet of flatbed and Lorry Loader equipped haulage vehicles from strategically based operating centres throughout the United Kingdom. Axle Haulage provides effective, competitive, sustainable transport and lifting solutions on a nation-wide and regional basis for the Rail and Construction Industries.
As Fleet Manager I, Alan Dyke have only been with the company since September 2018. I have over 30 years’ experience in the transport industry and in that time there have been some great changes in vehicle technology, design and care taken over the environment and health & safety.
Barry Jordan Managing Director of the business says, “We first heard about FORS at the end of 2011, we were doing a lot of work on the Crossrail project for tier 1 contractors. It became obvious that we needed to start working to the FORS standards and show our commitment to the changes taking place within the transport and construction logistics industries”.
The Management System that existed in those early days helped us to achieve the Bronze standard first time. Following on from the Bronze assessment we were keen to progress to Silver which was achieved in January 2014. With my arrival in September 2018 I have rewritten and reviewed our Bronze and Silver policies. We passed our latest re-assessment for Bronze in November and Silver in December 2018. FORS has helped identify areas where improvements to the existing systems could be made.
FORS and approved partners have helped us manage in many ways, for example in our driving licence checks and online management tools. We now use a Telematics system fitted to every vehicle which helps us in planning our routes, checking on vehicle idling times, drivers driving behaviour and monitoring fuel consumption. The FORS workshops have also been a great tool for all our staff, from the Safe Urban Driver Courses (SUDS) to the FORS E learning modules
“I was amazed how much I enjoyed the e learning modules.” – Barry Jordan (M.D.)
We wanted to use the FORS standards to demonstrate our continued dedication to improvement, We have been able to undertake this with the help of FORS, from the very beginning our aim was to progress to the highest standard of FORS compliance, this has been driven mainly by our own wish to continually improve our operation but more recently many sites are insisting that deliveries and collections are made by at the very least Silver compliant operators and in some cases the minimum is now Gold.
Performance data
|
MPG |
Incidents per 100,000 Kms |
Number of PCNs |
|
|
Jan-Dec 2017 |
11.6 | .98 | 3 |
|
Nov 17 / Oct18 |
10.59 | .75 |
9 |
| Percentage improvement | 0% | 23% |
0% |
- As you can see from above in the last year our miles per gallons has reduced, this is due to 2017 figures being over and above what would have been expected. The increase in this year’s PCN is due to the introduction of The Bank traffic free area and our drivers being caught early in the scheme.
- All drivers undergo six monthly safety critical medicals, this was initially driven by our rail customers but now it is in place we would continue with this as it has been well received by our staff.
- All fleet vehicles are noise assessed and labels are attached to them giving DBa data like those used on plant.
- We trialled a Hybrid 7.5t in 2017 the resulting figures were disappointing especially with reduced payload. There is no current viable alternative for our larger specialist lorry loader vehicles.
- Future plans are to make continual fleet improvements, we have purchased three New Euro VI vehicles which will be arriving in the new year and will mean our fleet meets the 2019 ULEZ deadline. We have also had all our vehicles fitted low level windows to aid with Direct Vision on the N/S doors.
The Gold accreditation has meant so much to all Axle Haulage staff , We are wholly dedicated to making the company the best it can be and we are extremely proud of the commitment in all areas that everyone involved in the business has put in, we have used the materials provided by FORS to assist with the continual improvement of the company and are looking at new technologies for further safety improvements along with fuel consumption, our carbon footprint and management tools.
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