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It's not a racing certainty that French operators will be queueing up at the Calais terminal to take Le Shuttle to Folkestone when the Channel Tunnel finally opens to commercial vehicles.
For United Savam, the Soissons, France arm of United Transport Logistics, (both of the L2bn turnover giant BET group) the UK is an important area, but it is not necessarily going to head the bunch waiting to get on board the new freight service.
The Chunnel freight operation, scheduled to begin this month, has been pegged back to a later date as is the passenger service which was due to be opened by the Queen in early May.
Whenever it opens there is one important detail that needs clarifying before United Savam's deputy managing director Yvon Pouhaer gets his trucks on board—and that is ticket prices.
"Will we use Le Shuttle? Well it's still some way off yet and we are continuing to negotiate with Eurotunnel," he says.
"It's not like the Mont Blanc or Frejus tunnels where there are clear advantages and the trucks drive straight through—in the end it will have to be competitive with ferry rates," adds Pouhaer. "Only the price will decide" United Savarn carries out a door-to-door delivery service running 4,000 drawbar trips a year into the UK, Italy and Germany. Spain is its most important market with more than 3,000 loads a month.
Business continues to grow which is why United has purchased its first batch of 30 new Volvo FH 12-340 drawbar rigs at a cost of around £3 million. More are anticipated.
These are the first replacement vehicles among its fleet of 450 since drawbar lengths were increased to 18.35m in early 1992 and hawk-eyed UK dock spotters will soon be seeing them passing through the Dover/ Folkestone terminals—all left-hookers and running in United's traditional blue and yellow.
United Savam has been the official haulier for the Tour de France for the past 17 years and is about to sign up for another stretch. Next year,the race will have a UK stage and for this event it will certainly use the tunnel, says Pouhaer.
The company had a £38 million turnover last year and shares its efforts between its home market, Britain, Benelux states and southern Europe.
It sub-contracts the road transport operation to its Volume Transport division, of which 50% of shares are in the hands of its contracted, self-employed drivers.
United Savam initially specifies the vehicle and the service back-up.
It then finances the deal and drivers pay the capital back on a monthly basis from the 20% payment on goods carried.They usually own the outfit after five and a half years.
As United encourages family teams it also attaches particular importance to providing the best possible cabin environment.
We paid particular notice to the Volvo FH cab," explains Pouhaer. "It's a fresh design and looks good inside and out."
It has certainly attracted plenty of interest in France where sales are already over the 1,000 mark. Most of these have the 283kW (380hp) engine and CD sleeper cab trim.
United Savam's haulage operation comprises 200 rigids fitted with 60/70m3 bodies and 250 drawbars of up to 110m3 capacity but these will be expanded to cope with growing trade in Southern Europe.
Its customer list runs to more than 500 trade and industrial firms, the top 250 providing United Savam with over 95% of its business.
United Savam's fleet covers around 80,000 movements—full and part load—each year. Because of increasing high volume traffic, particularly in paper products and white goods, United Savam wanted to develop a suitable high-volume combination that would suit its operational needs.
In order to be able to carry up to 38 Europallets with payloads in the region of 19 tonnes on four axled rigs, the company turned to its regular trailer and bodybuilder Trouillet of Ralbign. Trouillet is a substantial, 30-year old family business with more than 1,000 employees and an annual turnover of £75 million. In addition to several factories in France it has a network of over 30 service agents throughout the EC and Scandinavia.
Savam's parameters were simple enough; internal body heights up to 3.0m, a sturdy floor for forklift loading and a raise/lower roof to gain maximum cube.
Trouillet produced both the centre,axled air-sprung trailers and GRP bodies which
were 7.25m internally on the 52m wheelbase rigids and 8.07m on the trailers.
Using a simple standard drawbar assembly the distance between the bodies is kept to 440mm within an overall length of 18.29m.
To bring the body floor heights down to 12m the outfit uses low profile tyres; 295/80R 22.5s on the truck chassis and 385/65 R22.5s on the trailer.
Interior body heights are 2,73m.
However, many of its customers have loading docks of varying heights so the vehicle floor levels can be adjusted to suit by altering the air bag pressure.
Instead of a pneumatic or hydraulic roof lifting system, United has opted for a simpler mechanical arrangement. A hand winder in the rear right-hand corner raises or lowers the roof via geared shafts with roller curtains covering the gap between top and bulkhead and doors. United Savam's current fleet is predominantly Daf so its shift away to Volvo is significant. Why Volvo rather than Daf? As the French are always perceived to be more patriotic than most why not choose Renaults ?
According to Pouhaer: "We've been a Daf fleet for a long time but decided we might change.That was before the Dutch company's problems."
It looked at eight different chassis in all before deciding on the Volvo, deliberately avoiding low-height chassis because of the higher costs involved.
"Renaults were simply not economical enough and the Dafs we wanted were not powerful enough," says Pouhaer. "Our drivers are naturally pleased with the new cabs but more importantly,Volvo delivered the Belgian-made FH's when we wanted them".
0 by Bryan Jarvis