Fuel management service delivering results for Maxi Haulage

Maxi Haulage Managing Director Alan Miles has declared that the company is ‘quite optimistic’ with the results from the trial of Volvo’s Fuel Management Service (FMS) which have been taking place at their Wrexham depot.

“The intention is to roll out FMS to other Maxi Haulage depots now, such as the Maxi vehicles based at our Warwick location.” Alan says.

Overall year-to-date fuel usage, as measured over a mixed age group of Volvo and Renault trucks during the worst winter weather seen for decades, has improved by 3.28%. “Once the figures have been annualised to take into account seasonal effect, we believe 8% will be achieved,” explains Alan.

Says Volvo’s FMS Customer Business Manager Nigel Bailey: “Given the severity of the weather, we were pleased that the Maxi drivers, who have been briefed about the FMS objectives and targets, have responded positively and made improvements regarding the targeted driver behaviour skills, which deliver the fuel savings.”

A saving of 3.28% is being reported at the time of writing. This is continuing to improve, says Nigel Bailey.

Compared to the initial data set using Dynafleet recorded in November, before driver development had taken place, the Wrexham depot drivers have improved in all areas of driver behaviour, particularly coasting, cruise control and top gear usage, plus engine idling has reduced from 11.54% to 8%.

Designed to improve fleet fuel economy through a combination of driver development and attention to vehicle operational detail, FMS involves Volvo’s customer business team working in partnership with operators, including those with mixed fleets, on a fully featured, in-depth Management service.

FMS involves audits of operators’ current fuel consumption and driver performance backed up by long-term action plans and monitoring of fuel usage via Dynafleet telematics.

Actions so far include analysing the data from the first month of the project in November. FMS objectives and targets have been presented to the Wrexham drivers and benchmarks agreed. Driver development has been carried out with the first group of drivers and driver information and league tables are produced weekly.

According to Nigel Bailey, the next steps include reviews of driver training requirements, arranging for Volvo and Renault product training for selected drivers and agreeing which driver performance objective to focus on next. Volvo and Maxi Haulage are also looking at where engineering can improve mpg performance – by tyre pressure management for example.

The FMS progress will be reported quarterly on the Maxi Haulage website maxihaulage.co.uk