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It must be petrol for reliabilit,
Page 30
Page 31
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Alan Millar looks at ne operation of a light van That shot' carriE who says at for speed and dependabili-y, it has to be petr(
URGENCY is the name of Peter Godfrey's game. The South East London-based light vehicle operator specialises in carrying industry's ''hot shots'', the items which must be collected today and delivered yesterday, and says his service is competitive with air freight, and sometimes beats it.
P. J. Godfrey Light Transport has been at South Bermondsey for six years, catering for people like printers who m'ight otherwise use van rental companies. His philosophy is that his vans do the same things as full-size lorries, and he appears to be succeeding. As he told me: "We're exactly the same as a larger firm, only we use light vans."' He found in the early days that many light van operators in the own-account sector were finding problems in using vans from rental companies. They could get them if they gave a few days' notice of their requirements, but spot hires were out of the question. He accepts that rental companies are much better now, but a good base has been established for his own trading, and he is building it up.
Toyota
Business began with a Toyota Hi-Ace one-tonner which was fitted with a flatbed body. In Peter's words, things "just developed" from there, and now he has a five-vehicle fleet and three trailers. Ford Transits, one of them a diesel-engined model, ,form the backbone, but there are two Volkswagen LTs, one a van, the other a flatbed.
The oldest Transit has a V4 petrol engine, its second, and has clocked up over 200,000 miles in more than five years. Peter cannot speak too highly of his Fords, or of the service which he gets from his local dealer, but the VVVs have been a less happy experience.
Both are fitted with Perkins diesel engines, and one of them, a three-year-old, is about to be replaced — with another LT. But diesels in general do not please Peter, and he plans eventually to run nothing but petrol-engined Transits. While the LT van has been known to return up to 32 mpg, and the best petrol Transit 18 mpg, the diesels are generally less reliable, and that is an important concern for a small operator.
He standardises on 35cwt models which are capable of towing trailers, and this increases the light vehicles' potential greatly. In terms of
total capacity, the light vans' payload goes up by at least a third when a trailer is attached, and, with light items, it often is doubled.
Peter and Ken Angel, his transport manager, know that they must tread a careful balance when working out a unit's capacity. "We must work within the legal gross train weight for each combination," Peter told me, and added: "We have to do a quick set of sums to arrive at the right answer for every job," His latest trailer, built like the others by G. W. Elen and Sons of Peckham, London, helps wage the war against fuel shortages. It is fitted with sockets for .a fork-lift truck, and can be carried back to base on an empty vehicle when there is no return load available.
As Peter points out, his business is all about speed, and a eturn load must be ready for him, otherwise it is better to turn around and get back to London. This applies as much to European journeys where he is highly competitive with air freight as it does to domestic ones. "We look for return loads if they are available, but prefer to return quickly.'" Recently, he did arrange to have return goods when he took a consignment of street fui ture — seats, barriers and like — across to Brussels. returned with flowers. The sa applied when he took antic furniture, security grilles, a leaflets to various EuropE cities, and came back with cc puter equipment.
Inland traffic, again, conta the more bizarre items I frozen Chinese pastry a
'gently wanted engineering lares, but there are regular ns. There is a weekly road)in service from London to anchester with nine or 10 ops, and Peter has good relams with two larger road luliers nearby. He does some the small jobs which do not erest them, and, in exchange, ay do some of the larger ones lich are too big for Peter.
He carries substantial quantities of higher value soft fruit and vegetables, like imported melons, strawberries, and courgettes, and reports good business moving strawberries from Kent to Newcastle, Wales, and other extremities of the realm. Air freight operators feed their Middle East fruit business on to his vans.
Faster
Peter is convinced that people use his service because the service is better and faster than the average. He accepts that his costs per ton are bound to be much higher than for fullsize haulage, but there is little sign of him suffering. As he told me: "Apart from one advertise ment in the local Yellow Pages, we are not in a position to go in search of extra work.'"
He adds: "We have a nice portfolio of regular customers covering all sorts of commodities,and points out that he his prepared to carry anything nonspecialised. There are no refrigerated minivans or light tankers . . . or not yet, anyway.
The European work, which is shared equally among all five drivers, has taken Godfrey vans into France, Italy, Belgium, Holland, West Germany, Switzerland, and Denmark, and Peter says he finds it easier to run to Belgium than to Scotland. On the other hand, there is a price penalty on Channel ferries where he is charged on a length rather than weight basis. This adds to his rates.
Most of the European work is urgent or high in value. Print and advertising material goes regularly, there has been a machine for a lampshade factory, and Peter himself was in charge of a van which took several television sets to Le Havre for the crew of a collier.
Two men were allocated to a van recently to guarantee the fast and smooth transport of an earth-moving machine's engine from Cummins' Scottish factory to Bruges. That went well, but the delivery of parts to a Le Mans canning factory nearly came to an abrupt end. Unfortunately, the documentation read -guns and turrets-, and the van was surrounded by armed Gendarmes before it was allowed through.
Peter realises that, as a small firm, he must choose his drivers carefully. He prefers to recruit men with road haulage experience, if possible with hgv' licences, and has had some "fantastic responsesto advertisements in his local newspaper. In one case, 80 applicants chased after one vacancy.
Tachographs He also has a high opinion of the Road Haulage Association. It has given him considerable help when planning new Continental work, and researched such problems as whether he would need to use tachographs. While the answer to that question was a vague "it is still in doubt-, Peter is resigned to the coming of the tacho and the increased costs which it will bring in its wake.
For the future, Peter wants to buy an extra two vehicles, and he wants to break into longdistance car and light commercial recovery.
He does substantial plant delivery work, but some items such as site dump trucks are too awkward for the present fleet. Vehicles with ramped bodies would take some of these, and could carry his own vans and broken down cars over longer distances than many garage proprietors are prepared to travel. This could also plug the gaps which the Automobile Association's Relay service cannot fill for his own fleet.
But this ambitious outlook does not extend to the world of full-size commercial vehicles. Peter said it all. "Bigger road haulage? Oh, no thank you. Bigger road haulage means bigger problems." He wants to keep the personal touch which has kept his light vehicles on a straight course so far.