J ohn Seymour Transport of Aylesford, Kent, is a general haulage
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company operating internationally with 60 vehicles, mostly 41-tonne artics and 18tonners, Fleet engineer Mick Anstey says the company started using a DOS version of Roadbase in 1996. "We've got a Windows 95 version now too, but I've continued to use the old one. The Windows version is faster and the report writer is more versatile, but I know from trial and error with other software that, when you upgrade to Windows 95 versions from DOS, you often come across problems. When I asked Chevin about It, they couldn't say
there wouldn't be any. The great beauty about the software is that every part is user-definable. But I think when you upgrade, there is a lengthy process of reconfiguring to go through. It is worth the time and effort but at the moment I haven't got the time to stand the system down— it's in use all day, every day.
"Over a year I looked at numerous other programs, but most of them were short of a lot of the ideas we've since added to Roadbase.
"For example, we need to know all the vehicle dimensions, the cube capacity and the payload. Chevin helped us amend the vehicles screen so you can just tell it which tractor and trailer you are using and it will come up with the maximum payload.
"It's very useful, given the number and variety of our trailers, and nothing else we looked at came close to this.
"I can't say there Is anything it doesn't do that we'd want it to," he concludes. "It's excellent value for money and, although I don't have experience of other software, I'd have to give it close to 10 out of 10.
"It has made our lives a lot easier. When we had 10 vehicles I could know everything about all of them. Now, we'd need at least two of me if we were still doing things manually!"