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• Havant-based distribution firm Six-0 Transport says it has seen
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a dramatic reduction in communications costs and efficiency improvements in consignment scheduling since it started using Siemens VDO's Datatrak vehicle tracking system.
The firm, which carries out express parcel and freight deliveries, runs a fleet of 12 vehicles comprising one 18-tonnee six 7.5-tonners, four 3.5-tonne vans and one car-derived van. All were fitted out with the Datatrak system in November last year.
"Despite all our vehicles having in-cab telephones, we felt it was important to be able to provide customers with real-time reports on the progress of their goods," comments Mick Paffey, MD of the firm. "That's always been a requirement with urgent deliveries and now we don't have to phone drivers all the time for a situa tion report—sometimes, when we were busy, that's all we seemed to be doing before."
The firm has done away with seven or eight phones as a result, saving a monthly charge of £25 per phone for line rental as well as actual call charges.
It's also enabled us to take on more work when we're busy because rather than making our best guess about all the vehicles' locations and then calling all the drivers to check it, we can just look at the screen and see where they are," Paffey says.
Time sheet accuracy has also improved, he adds, with a resitting fall in overtime claims.
The system, based on mobile phone cell location technology, cost around 1400 per vehicle to fit and casts another £20 per vehicle per month to run, according to Paffey, who says lie was quoted figures of around £50/month for competing GPS-based systems.
• Contact: 0121 326 1234 or www.vdo.o0m