Fleet Newsletter

April 2022

FLEET NEWSLETTER

www.theswaingroup.com

GROUP FLEET UPDATE AND NEWSLETTER

Fleet Facts

4463

Routine Safety inspections

855

Vehicle and trailer MOT’s

1547

Tyres replaced

22,500,000 Total KM’s driven

Delivering solutions elcome to the first edition of Fleet news!

The concept for this publication is to inform the whole of the Group the activities of what the Fleet Team have been up to over the past year and give you an update on things still to come.

It doesn’t matter what role you do within group, we are all driving to keep the fleet legally compliant and a safe place for our drivers to work, whether that’s helping out in administration by linking all the teams together, or you are in a supporting role in head office by paying the bills or raising invoices we are all dependent on the fleet to move our customers’ goods from A to B to generate the revenue to allow the business to reinvest and reach its targets on turnover and profitability.

However, events over the past

two years have significantly impacted on how the world works and some of these challenges Fleet has experienced will be explained in the following pages as we collectively move to a post pandemic set of economic challenges ahead.

Many of the challenges our fleet will face over the coming years will focus on climate change and how we can all reduce the carbon footprint from our operations, which were highlighted at the COP26 Conference. Our fleet is meeting those challenges as we continue to evolve. So I hope you enjoy the read and if you have any suggestions for improvements please get in touch.

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FLEET NEWSLETTER APRIL 2022

Change continues at Swain Group Now that 2021 is in the past and with the first quarter drawing to a close, I thought I would take the opportunity to reflect on 2021 from the Fleet’s perspective and update the whole business on some of the challenges we have faced and overcome and a few still to come. However, I think we can all agree on one thing ‘21 was certainly a challenging year, not only with the continuation of the Pandemic affecting our daily lives, but also with the struggles of fleet’s pursuant of compliance (legal, moral and financial) were all condensed to make it quite a roller coaster of a year.

With the ever-changing need of our fleet to reduce its environmental impact continuing throughout this year, the real focus is on carbon

Fleet Size At the close of 2021 our fleet size was of 366 trucks across the group, with just 17 of the operational trucks being classified as Euro 5 status for emission standards before we can claim we have a full Euro6 fleet which can enter any Low Emission Zone within the UK. With the exception of just a few trucks all of them are owned by whichever business they are being operated in, and the vast majority of the trucks are being maintained in house across our four internal workshops, where you will find a dedicated workshop team of 46 technicians and service teams with extensive spare parts to meet with the demands of the job.

When you compare how our fleet has moved from a mainly Euro 5 fleet just three years ago to where we are today, it is a testament to the Swain family that their continual reinvestment of profits into the group has allowed the business to thrive even during the past two challenging years. When it comes to tendering for new opportunities, the strong position of the Euro 6 Fleet supported by our FORS Gold accreditation(s) and driver training programs are putting us in the best position to win more contracts during 2022 and beyond.

This change to a more environmentally

reduction planning as outlined at the recent COP26 Climate Change conference. Reducing fuel use is clearly the first and easiest ways of reducing our carbon footprint, however having new kit and all the latest engines will only get us part of the way in reducing our fuel consumption, driver technique is equally important along with good route planning and congestion avoidance, so we still have along way go until we are all driving zero emission vehicles.

impressions are really positive with low cost maintenance being reported by the service agent. The batteries and motor are performing well, so far, and there hasn’t been any issues with the van or keeping the van charged overnight and therefore Fleet are considering adding more fully electric vehicles to the fleet when the opportunity presents itself.

However, there is some good news, the Swain Group, working in partnership with CPI Books have already started to embrace the changes of alternative fuels with one fully electric van on fleet. Its cost and performance are under constant review, and first friendly fleet is not only beneficial for fuel saving and protecting the planet from the ravishing effects of climate change, but the level of investment into newer trucks we receive an extra saving as the cost of the road tax bill is also reduced and this too helps the business attract more business as we continually demonstrate the Groups capability to work in the toughest of environmental changes, inner cities.

10 pre used tractor units joined the Manchester operation, and whilst ordering we took the opportunity to replace the CF cabs to upgrade them to larger XF cabs to increase the driver comfort levels for those who spend the week, or the odd night, away from home. This change to the basic cab design is now the standard for the Swain fleet as the XF has demonstrated the higher driving position and extra space in the cab are now our preferred cab of choice when compared the slightly smaller CF.

The Rochester Distribution operation has seen 5 replacement trucks enter service last year, and their introduction has significantly reduced the age profile of this dedicated fleet.

In addition, a further 4 replacements are due in early ‘22 to complete the change from Euro5 to Euro6 emissions where these changes were purchased to ease the challenge of operating within London and helping to reduce our carbon footprint.

Along with all the replacement trucks, 38 trailers were added to the fleet last year, 12 light weight skeletons for the Tideway operation, 12 Draw bars to accompany the prime movers on brick & block and 2 low loader specialist trailers being run in the Special project business unit. Eurobulk purchased 3 new tipper trailers and off hired the 3 trailers they had on hire, and last but not least Hallett Silbermann acquired a new 3 axle low loader for their daily use.

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Fleet Assistance Fleet Replacements Over the past year, several fleet replacement programmes running consecutively along with the fleet expansion plans to cope with the contract wins the sales team have successfully won.

Last year 73 replacement trucks have joined the fleet, with 36 brand

Fleet Assistance In July the new fleet assistance programme went live which gives all Swain Group drivers direct and instant access to repairers or recovery agents, should a roadside repair not be possible, and to ensure any call for help doesn’t go unanswered. The Fleet Assistance support line also acts as a conduit for tyre repairs or replacements directly to Bridgestone where Fleet can now performance manage its service repairs the fleet breakdowns as a whole (more on that later). The date in July also coincided with the go-live date of the new Bridgestone contracts for the whole of Group, so the whole fleet benefits from the increased buying power of the group. This effectively means that both the Fleet Assistance team and the Bridgestone call centres are both aligned to give the best response to a call. Both are equipped monthly with the full details of every truck and trailer on fleet including the warranty expiry dates and all the tyre sizes so there should be minimal delays in getting the right team to a driver. The combined knowledge of both teams really comes into its own, when a tyre failure causes the wing to be destroyed as both call centres can assemble their individual teams then monitor and manage the arrival of both teams simultaneously.

Since the introduction of the Fleet Assistance scheme, and to the end of December ’21 the call centre has received over 400 calls for assistance, 189 of which were for tyre related issues. As a driver it can very frustrating not being able to get help when broken down and this

new trucks joining the fleet, and 37 used trucks. Most of the used trucks were acquisitions to support the Brett contract as these trucks were purchased from the outgoing incumbent, or as additions to ease the pressures on the brick and block operations by adding the now infamous Black Dafs onto fleet, that total 6 across both Woodville and Rochester.

is particularly evident when broken down in a vulnerable location, or when stranded in the middle of the night. The good news is the Fleet Assistance team are reporting on average call waiting times are 12 seconds to support our drivers across the past 5 months. As part of the contract, the Swain fleet team and Transport Mangers have direct access to immediate and detailed performance data of both the contractor to whom the job was issued and the call handling control room, with a message direct message service to the call handler to allow information to freely pass between all parties.

The service also includes a location finder for any mobile phone, so if a driver is not fully aware of their location, the what3words App can quickly find the driver within a 3m radius providing the driver give the App permission to locate their phone.

So far this service has only been used twice, which is remarkable and clearly demonstrates that our drivers usually know where they are.

As with most modern telephonic call handling centres all calls in and out are recorded and so too are the Bridgestone call centre calls monitored in the same way. On a few occasions we have requested the recordings, to replay, to check the call handlers performance in dealing with call and one other time when things didn’t go quite right. The first was where the call handler failed to give the address of a tyre breakdown correctly to Bridgestone, leaving one tyre technician traveling up and down the M2 looking for our truck, when in fact the truck was in Ireland on their

M2. A quick check of the tape to find who was to blame for the delay and the compensation was quickly received from the guilty party and the customer was fully informed on the extra delay. A second playback was requested to check on a verbal miscommunication from our driver to the call handler. On this occasion no action was necessary as it was quite clearly a local phrasing of a location causing the confusion on the stricken vehicles location. However, both cases show the power of the service and may I remind you that the call handler is trying to help you, and they are just passing on information to deal with request for help, so please be pleasant and polite at all times, even though it can be very frustrating when broken down.

This map shows the locations whenever a breakdown or the tyre service is called upon, and gives us a clear understanding of where the breakdowns occur so any patterns can quickly be identified, and hotspot call out teams can quickly cover these

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FLEET NEWSLETTER APRIL 2022

Fleet Assistance cont. areas to reduce vehicle downtime and improve the overall experience to our customers. Although the service is in its infancy the service is already starting to show patterns of drivers calling in defects at the start of the day when they may have been identifiable when parking up. If these defects or repairs could have been called in the previous night then the need for a rapid response may have been avoided altogether, so drivers, please bear this in mind if you are parked up in a safe location and a urgent response is not required as the Fleet Assistance team can book technicians to attend your location the following day.

The fleet breakdown data is also used to improve all of our workshop’s performance, and those services supplied by external maintenance providers, to avoid future breakdowns and gain a better understanding of how best to service the fleet at future routine inspections. But it is not only the vehicle and trailer maintenance teams being monitored, the crane service providers and crane hose service providers are also being monitored and managed as we try to improve the overall service experienced by our driver workforce.

Managing the service contractors performance is key to developing the right approach to supporting our drivers waiting at the roadside, as the perception is time passes slowly when waiting. Over the past 4 months the speed of attendance has been under constant review and various meetings have challenged our supply partners to improve their service to the Swain Group.

In response they have provided their internal call centre’s performance data which supports our evidence that they are suffering extreme difficulties in employing tyre technicians in certain parts of the country, namely the South Coast and parts of East Anglia.

Improvements are being made all the time as new tyre technicians are employed and trained by their network service providers, however this will take a while to fill all the vacancies.

Bridgestone have acknowledged that their service levels are not where

they would like them to be and are working with the Swain Group to reduce the time spent at the roadside waiting for a tyre technician to attend.

This is where we may be able to help them by booking in none urgent tyre related issues the following day, or when a truck is not being used or the driver is resting or loading as a few of examples.

not good enough as some drivers have been waiting up to 5 hours to get to a stricken vehicle. Next year Bridgestone are launching a new reporting portal and job analysis tool to help identify improvements in their service, I can only hope this comes early in this year, so I can report back to you on the changes made and the positive impact this has had on their service.

The chart above shows Hiab and Atlas amongst the worst service providers to date, however the data has only a few breakdowns called in late in the afternoon where travel time and location caused some significant challenges to a drive away time within the allotted time-frame.

Bridgestone are placed third in the call out response time table and this is something which has been taken up directly with their management team as they are failing us with their performance when measured against the Service Level Agreement we have in place.

And then lastly, as the service continues to be monitored the likelihood of a Heavy Recovery Truck being called in for attendance has reduced over the past few months.

At present the use of a service van dealing with, and rectifying the breakdown, as a first time permanent fix is an impressive 96%. The only occasions when a recovery truck was required has been when the truck suffered an internal engine failure, a gearbox failure, excessive warning lights being illuminated on the dashboard showing extreme failure was imminent or when the truck was stuck in the mud, and even I can’t do anything about that one.

Bridgestone’s performance (shown to the right) when compared against all of our suppliers, shown here in minutes, indicating the average time to attend a roadside incident is just over two hours. This will be managed during the first half of 2022 as Bridgestone want to reduce the overall waiting time to a more acceptable 90 minutes. Bridgetsome are also aware that these times are averages and their internal data recording is by no means as good as those recorded by our Fleet Assistance database and they fully accept these are simply

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AdBlue and Fuel AdBlue and Fuel

Last year we saw the fuel markets remain stable for the first half of the year, whereas the second half, saw the fuel supply dry up due to an unprecedented demand by the general public and the pump price increase rapidly in line with demand, quickly followed by a wholesale increase in fossil fuels. Fuel being one of the biggest ticket items on the monthly payment plan this is under daily review to obtain the best price.

condition and working with the DVSA and regulators the consequence of failing to maintain the emissions of a truck are now in parallel with failing to fix or maintain the braking system.

The extract from the Guide to Maintaining Roadworthiness, the general rule book for fleet operator’s, shows the changes made and the note is quite explicit.

Emissions and air quality For vehicles showing signs of visible exhaust smoke, a diesel smoke meter should be used to ensure that the level of smoke emission is within the legal requirements. Information on the levels of permitted exhaust smoke is contained in DVSA‘s annual test inspection manuals.

Vehicles fitted with emission control systems (ECS) need to be maintained in line with manufacturers’ recommendations. Drivers and operators are required to monitor the ECS warning lamps, and ensure the diesel exhaust fluid level (AdBlue®) is maintained correctly.

Any emission control system faults need to be rectified as soon as possible and repaired in line with manufacturer’s standards.

It should be noted that a person who fails to maintain an emission control system, or modifies or removes it, could be found guilty of an offence. This would put your operators’ licence at risk, and the potential penalties are unlimited fines.

As for the first quarter of ’22 the price of fuel has risen exponentially and at the time of writing is predicted to be £2.00 a litre for Easter. The chart quite simply explains the pump price of fuel, the darker line being diesel and the lighter petrol, as taken form the Government’s pump price tracker website. You can easily see how the price has moved from 120ppl at the start of 2021 to 170ppl. These changes are reflective of various market forces such as the basic price for a barrel of oil, transport costs and increased production costs are all pushing pump prices to an all-time high.

And it is not only fuel that has seen as a dramatic rise in wholesale prices, AdBlue has also increased exponentially due to the rise in the commodities market where UREA, the base substance in the manufacture of AdBlue combined with the domestic markets slowing in India and Chinese have all caused the baseline to rise significantly. The chart shows the cost of Urea and how it has increased in cost over the past few years. This dramatic rise has been partly attributed to the rise in wholesale domestic gas, as gas is needed, in large quantities, to produce the liquid that we all see as an inconvenience, but is fundamental in keeping our emissions as low as possible.

All of the Swain Group supplies are under a tough contract to protect our supplies and ensure we have the best rate for our bulk purchase and I cannot stress enough, if you need AdBlue for your fleet vehicle you must fill up from our bulk tanks as the cost is about £1.00 a litre less than a filling station forecourt.

With this in mind, the Senior Traffic Commissioner toughed up on the penalties for failing to keep a vehicle in a roadworthy

To allow the Group to flourish, three new AdBlue tanks were purchased complete with remote telemetry to give advanced warning on stock levels. These new tanks are positioned within the Express Freight Services business, to best make use of the new depots that came on stream last year. And a final tank was purchased from the company we were paying rental charges on earlier in the year and this tank and pump arrangement is positioned with the Hallett Silbermann operation at Hatfield. This latest tank and all of the existing network all work from the same fuel card supplied across the entire group and report directly into fleet to give an overview of the usage and levels to prevent short supply, so if you are passing and need a top up call in and help the business reduce our operating costs.

Way back in January 2021 the fuel tank in Rochester was repainted and new signage fitted. As part of the tidy up an inspection as to the condition of the tank and equipment was also carried out. This report meant that significant investment was required to the pumps. Although we have tried to push the replacement pump programme as far as possible into 2022/3 the inevitable pump failures and poor reporting of litres used, usually by pump No. 2, saw the need to intervene brought closer to the end of the year. Despite a false start with the service provider, both pumps were replaced in December and whilst the tank was empty we took the opportunity to clean the inside of the tank, the first time the tank, pipework and walls were cleaned for some years. The reports show the amount of build-up of sediment at the bottom was 75-100mm across the whole tank and amount of microbiological growth in the fuel was relatively low, despite the increased amount of bio fuel being used in our diesel.

The new pumps also bring the facility back up to code with regards to the fitting of breakaway valves at the base of the pumps to prevent the tank from syphoning the full tank out onto the floor should a driver forget to replace the handle after filling. In addition to the new valves the service lines were fitted with extra inline filters and the pumps are fitted with improved filters to prevent debris getting into the trucks fuel tanks in the first place. All of these improvements are to speed up the refuelling time, prevent breakdowns and reduce the cost of fleet maintenance.

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FLEET NEWSLETTER APRIL 2022

Fleet Workshops Fleet Workshops All four workshops within the Group are now all being managed under the same reporting structure and management team as they are all combined under the Swain banner for the first time. This change to the reporting lines allows additional support to the fleet by allowing the fleet to be maintained anywhere without difficultly with the financial arrangements in place for each business. It also gives a benefit to the workshop teams as they are now able to share tools and equipment, knowledge and facilities when required. Over the past year several opportunities have arisen where using our shared platform we can return the fleet back into service quicker or cheaper than previously experienced.

The Woodville workshop opening hours has been reviewed and a significant shift change was put in place to give more support to the operations team by opening the workshop over the whole weekend to reduce the downtime on the fleet during the week whilst continuing to offer a maintenance service in the early mornings. This change to the opening hours has given an the operational team 72 hours of fleet maintenance over the weekend, enough time to service 12 trucks or 24 trailers, should the business require it. Additionally the Woodville workshop team have been challenged to increase the amount of external work to reduce the cost to running the operations, and so far the results have been very positive with more external customers choosing Swain Fleet Services as their go to maintenance contractor each month.

We have also continued the theme of our workshops becoming centres of excellence by attracting 5 apprentices to supplement the two already in post at Rochester. After the initial interviews, by our training provider, Stephenson’s College Coalville, Derbyshire, the local workshop managers had the final decision on who to award the apprenticeship to at each workshop. However, due to the strength of the candidates in Manchester and Rochester, managers were unable to split the difference between the two candidates and hence both of those workshops are now developing two apprentices in their first year of development. This apprenticeship team was boosted by the final apprentice, joining the programme in January and he is employed within the Hatfield.

Several improvements have been carried out across all the maintenance facilities with the biggest (and brightest) at Rochester by replacing the workshop lighting to LEDs firstly to improve the quality of the lighting and secondly, to reduce the cost of running the workshop lighting as this

is a 24/7 operation and then lastly to improve our sustainability outlook.

At the time of writing there are a few more improvements in planning and those plans will come to fruition over the next few months to the Woodville and Rochester wash bays.

The workshops have also been involved with the change from being Eco or Environmentally friendly to being sustainable, so what’s the difference?

Let’s take a look at an example to explain more. Being Eco friendly used to have the tag line Reduce, Reuse, Recycle which got the workshops so far when it came to the rags it was using. While it was good to be Eco friendly by reusing old clothes not fit for jumble sales and reusing them in the workshops, all this was doing was moving the issue further down the chain. So we looked at where the old clothes came from and where they eventually went and we found some things we could do better in our strive to be more sustainable.

The rags used to come to us so we can reuse and them, but that was all we were doing with them, other than covering them in oil and grease and throwing them away as general waste to end up in landfill where they will take hundreds of years to decompose as the materials used are nylon, polyester and synthetics, not to mention the plastic buttons, zips and fastenings all adding up to contamination of the land. So we have chosen a supplier to provide a natural

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Fleet Compliance & Legislation re-useable rag supplied clean and washed to each workshop fortnightly.

In the selection process for the rag supplier we weren’t just looking at the cost of supplying the rags we looked much deeper into their sustainability as a whole. The first thing to look at was the vehicles used to collect and deliver the rags, and like us, they have a road map to convert to fully electric vans within the next two years to reduce their carbon footprint. They also use biodegradable solutions throughout the washing process so not to affect their water discharge to the sewers so it is not harmful in any way. Then finally we asked what happens to the solid matter filtered out of the rags, well; the metals are collected and recycled, the oils and grease recycled and throughout the whole rag supply and clean no micro beads are used which are known to be in our oceans.

Taking this approach to sustainability you can see that Reduce Reuse and Recycle got us so far, but now we can push on to the next level. Last year we also looked at the amount of aerosols being used and where possible we changed from a metal aerosol tin full of airborne chemicals and propellants to a bulk buying containers with pump containers made from recycled plastics. This has not only reduced our waste going to landfill but reduced our cost of buying standard workshop fluids, such as penetrating fluid and brake cleaner.

With this good start behind us we looked for other opportunities to become more sustainable and soon found that on average we were using approximately 200kg of single use plastics in the form of disposable seat covers and steering wheel covers, so we purchased each technician with their own set of covers to protect the drivers area and eradiate this single use plastic from the workshop.

Since these changes were put into place we have started the challenge to be more sustainable, but since that first stone was cast into the pond the ripple effect will be felt across the whole business eventually.

Fleet Compliance & Legislation

We remain one of a select few of FORS Gold operators across all business where we are registered. As part of the requirement reversing cameras are a must and fleet has settled on one supplier going forwards for all our camera requirements to reduce the issue we were having with some of the recorders previously fitted and to provide (eventually) only one training course in the future. Our chosen service provider is Brigade Electronics who have over the years demonstrated ease of installation, long service life and best performing cameras and recorders. In bringing all the purchasing power to one supplier we were able to improve the level of equipment fitted and we now fit as standard a test button on all new installations so drivers can test individual cameras for operation, the wiring back to the recorder and the ability of the recorder to capture any images received, or give an alarm to the driver if a defect is detected. The system is also smart enough to record when the test button was pressed during the drivers first use check to reduce the chances of a collision occurring without the images being recorded, whilst as I hope you will appreciate, it is vital to fleet when dealing with the inevitable insurance claim or when challenging the rising number of spurious claims. This improvement has also seen the cost of the equipment reduce, for the first time in a long time as we continue to strive for excellence across the whole fleet.

The whole fleet has now been issued with, as a minimum dashcams, recording equipment to assist with any incident out on the highway.

These images play a vital role when proportioning blame after a collision with the third party where more usually the car drivers poor driving style is to blame when involved in a collision with one of our trucks.

Transport for London (TfL) gave Fleet a significant amount of administration in the first half of last year when the Direct Vision Standards (DVS) went live on 1st March. The purpose and scope of the requirement is to give the drivers extra vision to see, and therefore avoid collisions with vulnerable road users by changing the cab design to bigger windows or by lowering the position of

the driver’s seat and/or for the operator to fit additional safety system to alert the driver of a vulnerable road user close to the vehicle to be compliant.

Luckily most of our fleet was already compliant with the requirements so only an administration task was to apply for the permits to enter London.

We now have all the fleet registered to enter London and over the next few years we will be taking advantage of new cab designs when they become available, to ensure we remain a safe and compliant operator.

In support of our new customer base and to continue to improve the driver’s awareness when it comes to wheel security, since 1st March we have been fitting wheel nut markers as standard across all the fleet entering service so eventually all the fleet will have them fitted at some point in the future. These checks have been incorporated into the daily checks when completed on the (Jaama) Key2 App. They are highly visible indication and easy to check item on the drivers’ daily walk round check.

During the lowest point of the Pandemic back in 2020, the DVSA closed all the MOT testing centres for 4 months and adjusted the MOT dates electronically by adding 12-18months on to the expiry date. These changes are now playing out in full by artificially raising the amount of MOT’s due in unseasonably different months to how they have been programmed before.

The best way to check the MOT expiry date of any trailer, or vehicle for that

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FLEET NEWSLETTER APRIL 2022

Road Traffic Collisions Fleet Compliance & Legislation cont. matter, is to use the Key2 App as all the data held on file are up to date direct from the DVSA.

In February the DVSA change the MOT standards for Trucks and Trailers to include age related tyres on front steered axles not to be more than 10 years old, and the test regulations were updated again in May to the testing and operation of the road speed limiter changed to keep our technicians on their toes.

Road Traffic Collisions (RTC’s formerly RTA’s) Let’s start with why we now call these incidents Collisions instead of an Accidents anymore? The change from an Accident to a Collision come from the definition of the word accident which means chance or random activity happening without forethought or vision, when in fact all accidents can be prevented and hence accidents don’t just happen, they are caused, and this is the reason why they are now called collisions.

Last year the group suffered 6 extensive collisions to the fleet costing in excess of £200,000 to repair the 6 trucks and 1 trailer and I’m delighted to inform that none of the drivers suffered any personal injuries in those collisions other than an injury to their pride.

From the 6 collisions they were spread throughout all business divisions and across a variety of experienced and inexperienced drivers.

For all the other less significant collisions that were reported to our

insurance team, the fleet was involved with on average one collision per day or 250 incidents in total last year. From those reported collisions the cost to business to repair the fleet was in excess of £30,000 on the green fleet alone. Whereas for repairs to the fleet when visiting the workshop for routine safety inspections the fleet was found to be in need of 690 job cards for damage to be fixed and the cost of fixing this unreported damage exceeded £215,000 But the cost to repair the fleet for damage doesn’t stop at there, the workshops have also been fixing defects at PMI’s recorded as misuse costing an extra £30,000. In this group of items there were over 60 occasions when the susies were in need of replacing or de-tangling, and making 30 missing number plates for trailers.

Fleet Cleanliness Last year we invested into two new fleet washing stations. The first was a full installation where the old mobile pressure washer was replaced with a static purpose built machine being installed at our Manchester depot for the onsite wash operative to use to assist with preparing the fleet for the annual MOT inspection and for deep cleaning the fleet after a routine safety inspection. We also took this opportunity to install a machine specifically for the drivers to use to remove the general road grime. The wiring was also modified to stop the machine from being left on and causing any damage to the motors or the internals of either machine.

As both machines are at our most northern depot they are protected from any inclement weather by being fitted inside the wash room that required the workshop team to replace the roof to accommodate the newly fitted steam cleaners exhaust system.

Then to complete the install and keep everyone safe whilst at work and conjoined with the local Health & Safety team the drains on site were cleaned to prevent any water pooling on the surface and freezing to prevent slips trips and falls. All of this work has caused some disruption to the usual working patterns in Manchester so thank you to all the team in working collaboratively, to keep our fleet clean and tidy, and be the pride of the north.

The Group have also invested into a new mobile pressure washer for the Swain Lifting Solutions (formerly Gatwick Plant) to keep their fleet clean too. This will really come in handy as the is now adorned in its new livery as shown here. As you can see this new livery refresh and name change brings this business unit into alignment with the direction that you can spot a Swain Group vehicle, or at least see the styling cues across any group vehicle.

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Fascinating Fleet Facts Fascinating Fleet Facts As the main theme of this publication has been on becoming more sustainable and change, I thought I would try and explain how to make the biggest change to our environmental impact, by reducing the amount of fuel used, but first let’s look at how much fuel is used in an engine. If we take one of our standard 6 cylinder engines, in one of trucks, producing 450-500 horse power (equal to 90% of the fleet) driving on the speed limiter in lane 1 of a motorway weighing 44ton and not going uphill or into a strong head wind, then each two revolutions of the engine would cause each

cylinder’s to fire. The fuel used, or injected into the cylinder through 5-6 holes in the injector tip at 25,000psi through holes a third the diameter of a human hair, uses about 1 rain drop per revolution, add this all up, and for every 1km travelled the amount of fuel used equals about a Coke can full.

Last year the fleet workshops carried out 1,646 routine safety inspections on trucks and 2,817 on the trailer fleet as a combined effort. In addition the staggering number of 6/8 weekly PMI’s the workshops have also carried out 256 truck MOT’s and 599 on trailers.

From these MOT’s only 9 truck MOT fails were recorded across the whole

Business Units Brett’s CPI Books Eurobulk Express Freight Gatwick Group Ltd Hallett Silbermann Ltd London Gateway R. Swain & Sons - Manchester.

R. Swain & Sons - Rochester R. Swain & Sons - Woodville Special Projects - Strood The Swain Group Grand Total

of group which includes several external workshops supporting fleet and 24 fails on trailers.

From this data the workshops have an initial pass rate for trucks of 96% when compared to the National average of 87% and 96% for trailers when compared to the National average of 88%, so a fantastic effort all round and well done to all those involved with obtaining such a high score.

Across last year fleet replaced 1547 tyres, which was up slightly on last full year when the fleet went to work during 2019. We don’t count 2020 as some of the fleet were stood for some of it and the mileage driven was significantly less.

Distance Driven (Km’s) 950,026 275,910 1,700,181 3,506,738 460,153 970,590 82,888 4,751,382 4,074,349 2,783,983 2,910,561 11,974 22,478,735 km

From January to the end of November the fleet has driven over 22,000,000 kms, which equates to 25 trips to the moon and back!

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The future- What’s Next?

The future - What’s Next?

As noted at the start of this editorial, the emphasis will be on monitoring the carbon footprint of the fleet and the changing needs of the Government and our customers to meet keep the heating of the planet to a minimum. Clearly future legislation will change significantly over the next few years, not only in the truck world but also in the car/ van markets as the basic car driving test deals with the electrification of driving tests, in a similar way the truck test has changed to the newer trucks only available with automatic gearboxes.

All of these future challenges will impact on our daily lives and whilst most are not yet known the future is coming fast, so we better get ready to adapt and keep agile to meet those demands head on. Some of these changes are known today, although we don’t know all the facts what we do know is, we have a European legislation change to truck design in 2024 which will see possible overall length of a commercial vehicle rise and the use of twin trailers become an option for more countries to take advantage of. Then in 2027 the whole type approval of truck and trailer design will incorporate the trail of the longer trailers in the UK increase by 2m for trailers as the end of the 15yr trial comes to an end. These dates also coincide with the TfL date on DVS Permits and the TfL dates for the FORS standards together with the future of Euro 7 emission standards likely by then.

What we do know is that the fuel powering our trucks will change in the future, we just don’t know to what. Last year we trialled a LNG gas powered Volvo and the year before that a full gas powered Iveco all with potential savings on running costs, but when you add in the limited locations to refuel, the higher purchase cost at the start, the higher maintenance costs and the fact that there is no reduction on carbon produced- there is little point in changing our course from a full diesel fleet at present, although we will continue to evaluate the market to make sure we are not left behind.

Presently there are 7 alternative fuels in the market place and a host of hybrid versions to pick from. As the vision becomes clearer we will trial each alternative solution so look out for them in your fleet soon.

Other changes will come in place for fleet carbon monitoring in 2030 as fuel will be recorded in Well to

Wheel (WTW) instead of what we know as Tank to Wheel (TTW). So let’s start with the difference TTW the current way is simple, you put fuel in the tank of the truck and see how far you get, measure the Carbon produced and you have simple figure of Tank to Wheel on Carbon production, the next step will be measuring the Well to Wheel. This measurement takes into account all of the Carbon produced on getting the oil out of the ground the refining process, transportation from country of origin to the UK and the road transport to our storage tank and the power required to dispense it, the add on the carbon of the truck on its deliveries too.

2022 will be a test for any truck buyer, but for Fleet this will be a real testing year as all truck and trailer manufacturers struggle with the global slowdown on production as the Pandemic continues to cause issues in manufacturing.

At present we have 45 new trucks on order with only 25 confirmed for delivery in 2022 and new trailers are starting to slowly entered service, but no way in line with the business needs.

When I spoke with Volvo recently they gave the scenario of the key fob to open the doors has a microchip made in China sitting on a circuit board made in India, with both having delays in staff being available to work as the workers are nursing themselves and then their families with Covid, when they do get to work the raw materials are on back order and the power shortages are forcing the manufacturing plants to run at a lower capacity. Once they have made the parts the shipping containers are in the wrong place and the transport to get the items from the manufacturing plant to the ports are delayed, then the ships are delayed from port to port and then finally the cost of transporting these goods rose by 400%. And this is all before Volvo can put the key in the ignition and drive the truck off the production line. Clearly these supply chains will take some time to resolve themselves and we in Fleet will endeavour to keep the fleet as up to date as possible during the year.

FLEET NEWSLETTER APRIL 2022 11

The future- What’s Next?

Driver training continues at a pace, now that the changes have come into effect on direct access to C+E. Already a few of the workshop staff have progressed to this licence with many more to follow during ’22 to make the business more robust with fleet maintenance

to the shorter position and gain the advantage of being highly manoeuvrable around the construction site. With our partner Atlas cranes the faster and more powerful crane was chosen for this build complete with stabilisers to avoid the tilt switch to help with speeding up unloading.

And finally the New DAF Generation is ready to order, although I can’t say when we will see them but we are hopeful it is soon. We do however have some fundamental challenges to overcome, with or without camera side mirrors, with or with a passenger door aperture (with tilting passengers seat so the driver can see out of it) and then which cab XF, XFG XFG+ to decide upon.

Express Freight have recently taken delivery of a Mega Lift trailer and it has already attracted a new customer for this unique self-loading/unloading trailer to show off the true strength and versatility of the Group.

Rochester MOL have a new Dennison Urban trailer on trial for 12 months to evaluate the usefulness of the this leading industry design in dealing with tight building sites.

In its fully extended position the trailer can carry the same amount of packs as per any existing trailer, however when things get tight, the packs on the rear can be transhipped to the front half and the trailer can then slide

Capable of lifting 35t in any combination of 20’,30’ or even 40’ boxes in 2 minutes this one person operating trailer has the flexibility to place a box wherever the customer needs it on the floor, or should the customer require it the trailer can load a train carriage.

I hope you have enjoyed the first edition, and are looking forward to the next instalment of Fleet News and if you would like to share your experience or have a story to tell I look forward to you getting in touch.

Medway Freight Centre Priory Road, Rochester ME2 2BD Tel: 01634 733333