DHL sticks with Euro-5 for Morrisons contract
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By Hayley Pink
DHL HAS opted for the reliability and fuel efficiency of Euro-5 for its tanker fleet on its Morrisons contract, rather than risk unproven Euro-6 on what is its largest fuel distribution contract.
"The contract was important to DHL and we didn't want to put any of that business at risk by being early adopters of Euro-6," said divisional engineer Glyn Shaw. "When we were looking last year, we weren't sure what the effect would be on reliability and mpg; we needed to look at this carefully."
As part of its winning bid for the six-year deal, which includes the logistics giant managing real-time stock levels and delivering fuel to 335 of the supermarket's forecourts and RDCs, DIAL invested in 56 new Scania 440s. Fuel efficiency on the Scanias, which have been in operation for
six months, is averaging 8.55mpg, which DIAL is pleased with, said Shaw. "We've got aspirations to push that up. We'd like to get it to 9mpg. We have vehicles [some of the new Scanias] running in excess of 9mpg, peaking at 9.3/9.4mpg." The operator is also trialling a prototype Hatcher aerodynamic system on its fleet, to smooth
airflow between the cab and the tanker, as well as fitting a US-designed vortex generator, Airtab, on some of its cabs. Both are proving beneficial, with the Hatcher kit improving fuel efficiency by up to 1.4% and the Airtabs about 0.5%.
• Next week's CM will feature an in-depth look at Airtab.