DAF XF and B-double are on the highway to health

BY DAVID VILE

ONE of the displays that garnered a lot of interest as part of the recent South Bank Truck Festival was the ‘Heart of Australia’ B-double, paired with the latest-model DAF XF. It’s essentially a purpose-built medical clinic on wheels.

Since its inception nine years ago with one truck, the Heart of Australia program now operates five trucks providing specialist medical services to over 40 rural and remote communities across Queensland.

Under the leadership of Heart of Australia founder, cardiologist Dr Rolf Gomes, services provided to patients range from cardiology and neurology through to gastroenterology, sleep and respiratory specialties and geriatric medicine.

With three B-doubles and a single-trailer unit on the road, communities from Cooktown in the north through to Quilpie in the south have access to a range of medical services which would normally only be accessible via travelling significant distances to the larger centres.

Ainslee Wallace is the partnerships and communications co-ordinator with Heart of Australia and gave some background to the services provided over a large geographical area.

“Our program was specifically cardiology to begin with, but the demand from the community has driven it and we now have around 27 specialists across 11 specialties and 40 staff,” Wallace said.

“Since we commenced in 2014 we have seen around

16,000 patients and saved those patients around 33 million kilometres in travel accessing our services, and importantly we have saved over 600 lives.

“We are a referral-based service, so we have a lot of engagement with local GPs and the uptake has been really good – people appreciate the service and once we commit to a community we aim to stay there.”

Currently the Heart of Australia trucks are deployed on a regular ‘clinic run’, with one truck running west through Charleville to Quilpie, another working its way along the Queensland coast from Childers to Cooktown and the third truck taking in Charters Towers, Cloncurry, Longreach and Emerald in a circular route.

Static clinics are also held at Weipa and on Palm Island. The single-trailer unit is set up to service former mine workers with lung and respiratory screening on a regular basis.

‘Heart 4’ is the DAF unit which runs up the coast every four weeks, under the control of driver Ben Williams. Featuring the full quota of safety features and specifications to get the job done, the DAF is powered along by the latest Paccar MX13 engine rated at 530 horsepower coupled to a ZF Traxion automated gearbox.

The B-double trailers are set up with a full allocation of medical and diagnostic equipment along with water tanks and generators, so it’s fully self-sufficient if away from static power and water supply.

Needless to say, keeping the ‘show on the road’ can be a costly exercise and the program has solid corporate support from companies such as PACCAR Australia, along with

Livestock Transport.

“Corporate support is something we couldn’t do without, it means we can run the service without passing the costs on, our patients pay here what they pay in the city,” Wallace said. Up until now the program has been solely based in Queensland but plans are afoot to expand across the borders into the NT and WA.

“The programs we run work, so we are looking at scaling it up into the other states, it’s just a matter of getting the support,” she said.

Arrow uses some Cascadia 116 models for local cargo work and some Cascadia 126 sleeper cab models for longer runs.

The Cascadia has a short nose and is also fitted with additional bonnet-mounted mirrors, which improve its visibility. Like the Actros and Shogun, the Cascadia also comes standard with a full suite of active safety features including AEBS and is the only bonneted truck in Australia with a steering wheel airbag.

The inclusion of the active safety features was critical for Arrow’s needs.

“We were an early adopter of active safety features like active emergency braking with the Mercedes-Benz trucks and we just wouldn’t buy a truck without them,” Webster added.

“It is also reassuring that the Cascadia has a driver’s airbag and I was really surprised to hear it is the only one in that class that does.”

Coming from the Daimler Truck brands, all of the units can be serviced by the same dealership network.

Having bought the trucks under the Daimler Truck Financial Services (DTFS) guaranteed buy-back package, Arrow Transport has the choice to return the trucks at the end of the finance contract for the agreed price, keep or sell them.

Arrow Transport and Logistics now runs 120 trucks that operate cartage out of wharf precincts in Victoria, New South Wales, South Australia, Western Australia and Queensland.

ARROW Transport and Logistics has added new Freightliner and Fuso models to its fleet recently.

Historically Arrow’s wharf cartage fleet exclusively featured Mercedes-Benz trucks, particularly the Actros model.

However, with an increase in operational demand and supply chain constraints at Benz’s end, Arrow Transport was unable to source all the Actros units it needed in time.

The company ended up going with Freightliner Cascadia and Fuso Shogun models, in addition to the new Actros models, to meet its application needs.

“We are dedicated Mercedes-Benz Actros customers because they deliver the advanced safety features, fuel efficiency, lower emissions and driver comfort that we demand at Arrow Transport and Logistics,” said Arrow Transport’s managing director Craig Webster.

“Although we were a little hesitant at first, we have found that the Freightliner Cascadia and Fuso Shogun products also tick the same boxes that we care about, even though they have different characteristics.”

Webster says the Arrow drivers were unsure about the Cascadia and Shogun models at first but changed their opinion after using the new trucks.

“They had some preconceptions about the Fuso Shogun, with it being Japanese rather than a European truck, but these were soon overcome and the drivers love them,” he says.

“The Cascadia was also something different for us and we don’t usually run trucks with bonnets. But the feedback for both trucks has been overwhelmingly positive.”

The Shogun 460 models are perfect for side-loader work in built–up areas and the visibility, maneuverability and performance have all won new fans among the drivers.