Cappoquin selects Bridgestone
Bridgestone Ireland has gained a new fleet to be supported by the company’s Truck Point network. Cappoquin Transport Ltd, based in Cappoquin, Co Waterford, offers nationwide delivery service.
Fleet Business
Bridgestone Ireland has gained a new fleet to be supported by the company’s Truck Point network. Cappoquin Transport Ltd, based in Cappoquin, Co Waterford, offers nationwide delivery service.
Six months after appointing Andrew Huntly as business development director, Halfords Autocentres is continuing to drive its fleet and affiliate business with the addition of two further BDMs. The new appointments bring Halfords Autocentres’ fleet account handling complement to six, demonstrating the business’ willingness to invest in the sector as part of ambitious growth targets.
ATS Euromaster has reported that it beat its own roadside assistance records for the fourth year running in 2012. 2012 data shows ATS Euromaster’s customer response team and mobile fitting fleet cut the average time from receiving a customer call to arrival on the scene to one hour, five minutes and six seconds. That’s a drop of 17 minutes and 45 seconds from the 2009 times, which ATS technicians have reduced every year since. The data also shows ATS Euromaster is averaging a total time from receiving a customer’s call to completing the job at the roadside of one hour, 51 minutes and 29 seconds. That’s a saving of 14 minutes and 54 seconds on the 2009 times, which again, ATS technicians have slashed every year since.
Burton-based independent fleet management company CBVC Vehicle Management has signed ATS Euromaster to support its tyre management proposition for customers. ATS Euromaster reportedly beat off competition from rival firms to win an initial 25 per cent share of CBVC’s fleet business. The new contract sees ATS Euromaster supplying and fitting tyres to a fleet comprised primarily of cars and vans.
The November edition of Tyres & Accessories is now available for online viewing via our e-paper system. The latest bumper edition contains full coverage of this year's NTDA TAFF Awards and Brityrex 2012 as well as features on Motorsport, Green Tyres and Fleet Business. Subscribers can simply click more to browse the complete edition.
Ellisons Travel is fitting Michelin cold weather tyres to its entire fleet this winter. While the company has fitted winter tyres from a variety of manufacturers for more than 20 years, this is the first time it has selected Michelin cold weather tyres exclusively for its fleet of 42 cars and 25 luxury coaches and people carriers.
Michelin will supply tyres to recycling and resource management company SITA UK across its fleet of 1,400 vehicles after signing Michelin’s largest ever pence-per-vehicle-per-month deal with a “stop loss” policy incorporated. The three-year deal is structured to give both companies a shared financial incentive to reduce tyre damage over the longer term, particularly when it comes to SITA UK’s operations on landfill sites and in waste collections where tyre damage is more likely to occur.
Bridgestone has renewed its contract with Ireland-based company Cork Rent-A-Van, which specialises in rental leasing and contract hire. The newly signed deal will build upon a long-running, six-year relationship. It will involve Bridgestone supplying a range of new and retread tyres over the next 12 months to cater for Cork Rent-A-Van’s fleet of 300 vans and trucks.
Tructyre Fleet Management has introduced Cam Systems’ panintelligence fleet tyre management system following the completion of a two-month pilot. Using the new system the truck tyre service specialist introduced a dynamic, live data feed aligned to the organisation’s KPIs into its head office, improving functionality and visibility while saving administration time.
The Al Dobowi Group’s Eskay Tyres distributes the Westlake brand in several European markets, including the UK, and the company used the occasion of Brityrex to endorse personally the recently sealed distribution agreement with Vacu-Lug, the Lincolnshire-based retread tyre manufacturer. Surender Singh Kandhari, chairman of Al Dobowi Group and Tim Hercock, managing director of Vacu-Lug, met with their respective teams over lunch during the show. The deal is intended to expand the sales of the Westlake truck tyre brand throughout UK and Ireland (see Fleet Business for more details). At the show itself, Eskay staff introduced the latest Westlake passenger car fitments for the H and V rated RP26 and the high performance SA07.
In the past government-backed public sector contracts were seen as the safest business commitments around. With the economic environment being what it is, it is easy to see the attraction of securing business that you know will be paid for. However, with the finances of various European governments looking less stable than they have been for a long time, and with ministries such as the Department for Transport suffering from poor handling of rail bids such as the West Coast franchise, these types of contracts may not be the stereotypical cash cows they were once depicted as. And when you add in the fact that government contracts now have to manage the added administrative burden of labelling (which is effective from 1 November 2012), they certainly aren’t a walk in the park.
The news that a charge will be introduced was also well received by the Road Haulage Association, who said that the planned introduction by spring 2014 is especially welcome. This is a year earlier than set out in the consultation document and reflects strong lobbying by the RHA.
The Freight Transport Association has welcomed the publication of a Parliamentary Bill that will introduce a charge for foreign-registered vehicles using UK roads. Under the HGV Road User Levy Bill all heavy goods vehicles of 12 tonnes and over will be required to pay a levy before being able to travel on UK roads. For UK operators the Bill confirms that this cost will be rebated through an equivalent reduction in Vehicle Excise Duty (VED). Operators of foreign registered vehicles will be required to pay the levy at a daily, weekly, monthly or annual rate, depending upon how long they intend their vehicles to remain in the country.
The safety benefits of fitting winter or cold weather tyres are still not fully appreciated by many fleet operators in the UK. And the relatively mild winter in the UK last year may well have lulled fleet managers into postponing a decision to fit winter tyres to their van or car fleets. That’s according to Delticom, Europe’s leading online tyre retailer, which is also a specialist in the supply and fitment of winter tyres. Operating in the UK fleet market as fleettyres24.co.uk, the company is drawing on its considerable experience of winter tyre sales throughout Germany and elsewhere in Europe where these tyres are compulsory and necessary over the winter period.
Hexagon Leasing, the Derbyshire-based rental and contract vehicle management company, has opted to use Bandvulc and Bandvulc Tyre Contracts (BTC) for the management of its tyres across the UK. The tyre policy sees Bandvulc approved first life tyres for steer axles fitted and BTC’s network of tyre partners delivering the service.
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