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TIR formula h speed and security
Page 32
Page 33
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Alan Millar talks to an international operator with provocative viewf
WHEN AN air freighter tells you: Most British TIR services are hit and miss, hoping and maybe," it is tempting to rise up in angry defence of the road haulage industry. But when the words come from the mouth of Air Freight Limited Group managing director Terry Beddowes, they are coming from someone heavily involved in road haulage as well.
AFL is a recently reorganised concern based at Lydd Airport in Kent. Inter City Trucks Ltd, its domestic and international road haulage division, is based a few miles away at Ashford Airport Industrial Estate under the command of chief executive John Faulkner and director and general manager Albert Ingleston, while air freight is undertaken from Lydd by Skyways Aviation. There is also a 75 per cent interest in M. A. Young Freight Ltd, a Dover Customs clearance agent.
Each of the companies is vested with its own decisionmaking powers and is free to compete in whatever markets it sees as profitable, but together they provide an international freight transport package with road, sea, and air transport each used where it works best.
Most of the work done by Inter City's 24 vehicles, ranging from 6.5-ton Ford D-Series to Volvo F-Series artics and drawbars, is international. As Albert Ingleston told me: "We sell ourselves as an international haulier, but do some domestic work to cut down running costs.'" The main services offered are 'a nightly groupage operation from the company's Heathrow Airport depot to Beauvais near Paris, and a two to three times weekly service to Antwerp via Ostend or Zeebrugge. A new service introduced this spring links the London depot with Venlo on the Netherlands/West Germany border, and is used as an artery for German export and import traffic. A twice-weekly service to Milan is also operated, like the Venlo route in conjunction with another road freight concern, and again like the other services, it is fed with traffic from Inter City's Birmingham and Manchester depots.
Seen as the first of a series of British depots, they are open 18 hours a day and are sited close to airports. The Manchester depot is being expanded in the course of the next year, but Albert Ingleston sees scope for more depots in other parts of the country:
"We need to build up our activities in Scotland and the North-East, and there is scope for depots in Yorkshire and East Anglia. Manchester depot is covering the Leeds and Bradford area at present.
He also views additional depots as a means of making the best of EEC drivers' hours regulations. Already, trailers are all pre-loaded to cut down turnaround times and to gain the best return on capital.
Albert Ingleston also stresses that Inter City achieves such savings by operating entirely within legal requirements, and this is helped by making constant reviews of the pricing structure. "We have always operated strictly to these requirements, and all our costings are based on such limitations, and the amount of work you expect from the equipment.
He concedes that this leaves the company open to undercutting by smaller operators, but places great emphasis on the quality of service offered.
The company carries a wide range of goods on its road haulage links, including car parts, aircraft spares, engineering goods, cosmetics, foam rubber, wallpaper, and photographic equipment. Backloads include glassware, paper, cosmetics, and car brake parts. Where multiple drops are involved, Inter City prefers to use drawbar units, and has recently taken delivery of a three-axle Volvo F10 rigid with drawbar trailer, bringing the fleet of outfits to five.
"You have to be selective about the freight you carry, and you must do market research correctly," says Mr Ingleston, who is also confident that the company has a big future on the Iberian peninsula.
"We are getting more and more enquiries from Spain, especially from the industrial areas of Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia and Bilbao."
Inter City is looking for potential groupage and unit load partners in Spain, and intends to send a sales development manager to the country within the next few months. Foreign embassies in Britain have also been sounded with a view to establishing other services in such areas as Eastern Europe.
-We need to spread our base of business to meet changes of circumstances," says Albert Ingleston.
Although the company is based in a rural area, it has little trouble recruiting staff for its expansion, and indeed many of its drivers travel considerable distances to work each day. This
is a matter which impresse Inter City management, and hopes soon to acquire furthc parts of the redundant Ashfor terminal buildings for offic space, and to build a hostel ft drivers who would rather slee nearer base on short overniglstops.
The aircraft connectio doesn't stop there, as maintc nance of the lorries at Ashford i undertaken to the same hig standards as are necessary E Skyways Aviation. As most c the driving is done overnigh• the lorries are maintained i daylight hours, but the prc mises' isolation from residentiz areas frees the company fror any concern about noise if should need to repair a vehicl overnight.
It was in connection with th joint road /air services of Inte City and Skyways that Terr Beddowes made his "hopin and maybe'' criticism o standard TIR work.
He believes firmly that Britis; industry must pay more atter tion to the transport element c its activities as it does t manufacturing if it is to becom competitive in Europe. "I spell, so much time on the Continer listening to complaints fror )eople who don't believe the lelivery dates stated by British nanufacturers,he told me.
"I used to hear them de;cribed as promises. Now they ;ay 'lies' when talking about imes quoted by British corn)anies, and many orders ate lost }ecause of this."
He quotes an instance of a 3ri1ish car manufacturer which ;ould not improve upon a 14Jay delivery time for radiators to fleet vehicle-off-road orders. 'No one has the money to stock hat sort of thing as they did five 'ears ago, so the radiators are nade — unofficially — in Beljium.
''People in Britain are pre)ared to work overtime to fulfil in order, then they put it on a orry. Its crazy. They'll happily ose two or three days by seniing it by road,' he says. His answer is the combined service, using lorries to collect and distribute the goods, and a fleet of Douglas DC-3 Dakota freighters to fly them across the Channel.
The five DC-3s carry between 3,640 and 3,700kg of cargo, but capacity will he increased shortly when a fleet of larger Fairchild FH227B freighters is bought for the services between Lydd and Antwerp and Beauvais in both directions, and inbound only (by a quirk of air traffic licensing) from Rotterdam to Lydd.
Goods are distributed by Skyways' own staff throughout Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and France, and plans are being made for more cross-Channel links At the British end, an Inter City lorry leaves Manchester for London depot each night at around 22.00 with export goods for the Lydd services. Another leaves Birmingham an hour earlier with a similar load, and both return to their respective bases with imported goods ready for distribution the next morning.
At the same time two vans leave Lydd each night at 20.00 with all the imported goods from the aircraft. These are offloaded and sorted for distribution at London depot, and the vans leave between 03.00 and 04.00 for Lydd with the freight for the morning's 06.00 flights.
The vehicles are equipped especially for air freight, with lashings fitted to prevent move.ment, but this does not prevent their being used during the day for local deliveries in the South of England.
-We give as much security of freight as possible,says Terry Beddowes, who underlines the advantage of carrying through the air freight company's philosophy to its other activities.
He claims that none of those loses time. "We can boast customs clearance the same day as the good arrive, and if they arrive by road before 14.00, we will clear them the same day, or waive the customs clearance charge if we don't."
Mr Beddowes finds it difficult to say what goods his service carries, "We once tried to list them, and gave up when we reached 300 items!" Loads have included eggs, computer parts, oilrig equipment, livestock (even dolphins), and textiles.
-The textile industry seems to be much more intrested in delivery than it was a few years ago. It realises that in a fashion conscious market its products date very quickly.Over 2.5 tons of textiles went though Lydd the day before I visited Mr Beddowes.
It is the spillover of airline concern for speed and security
which struck me as the key to the joint services' success. -We want complete self-involvement in all we do. A second party doesn't have the same interest in the overall picture as we do," says Mr Beddowes.
This has allowed Inter City's nightly Beauvais road service to offer 24-hour delivery if the goods are at the depot by midday. Paperwork and goods monitoring is identical to that used in air freight.
The company claims this hasp enabled it to carry goOds for Britain's top 20 companies, and its reputation has had other benefits. -We are often called upon to rescue companies' shipments which are stuck on the TIR system somewhere in Britain," say Teriy Beddowes.
"I believe that only 15 per cent of TIR operators give the quality of service which industry deserves. One has to be aware of the type of haulier with whom one is dealing."
The air freight service is also a lifeboat to Inter City. Its Dakotas all have provision for up to six passenger seats, and this is used to help surmount the effects of the eight-hour EEC driving day. One driver is flown out to Antwerp by plane sometimes to replace another who returns on the next flight.
On occasions, breakdowns on the Continent are catered for by flying mechanics and spare parts on Skyways aircraft, but most mishaps are handled by a Volkswagen one-ton van which is on constant call to travel anywhere it is needed by Inter City.
Air freight may have its limitations, especially in terms of capacity, but its aura of speed and concern is something which many road hauliers can copy, and the AFL Group is one which has.
Air 'freight cargo is carried by Inter City trunk lorry from Lydd to London for distribution.