Fuel costs cut by 15%'
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by Guy Sheppard
A Welsh haulier who piloted a driving skills initiative estimates it will cut his fuel bill by as much as 1100,000 a year.
Trials of the Star Drivers scheme at John Pearce (Glyn Neath) cut fuel bills by 6.4-15.3%. Now Texaco Global Products— which runs the scheme with IAM Fleet, the commercial division of the Institute of Advanced Motorists—is offering discounted training to customers who use its lubricants.
John Pearce, managing
director of West Glamorganbased Pearce, says the firm runs a fleet of 41 trucks and spends £1.3m a year on fuel. it was absolutely conclusive that there were savings to be made," he reports. So far about a dozen of his 60 drivers have
gone through the scheme, in which groups of drivers attend seminars or receive instruction at the wheel Pearce now plans to put all the drivers through the training scheme, including one who will be specially trained to assess and retrain his colleagues. '1 think the benefits would only last about 12 months at most otherwise,' he says. if we retrain every body every six to nine months, it will make it a permanent improvement."
Texaco says fuel economies of about 8% are widely accepted as achievable with the right driving skills.
Bob Hinchliffe, national busi
ness manager of IAM Fleet, says: "Experience so far tells us that the training is self-financing, and can go on to cut bottom-line costs related to health and safety, and maintenance and fuel bills."