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WHAT DO THE OPERATORS THINK?
Page 41
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One man who is very pleased with biodiesel so far Is Kevin Richards. He is the fleet engineer for Yorwaste, which has the refuse collection contract for the City of York.
"We've been running it for a few months now and to be honest there isn't really a noticeable difference between biodiesel and the ultra low," he reports. "We didn't tell the drivers we were switching and they would soon have complained if there had been any difference in power or anything like that—and we heard nothing from them."
Richards runs 22 refuse collection wagons on the fuel and says early figures show a 1% improvement in fuel economy since they made the switch.
"I'm hoping that will improve even more as the engines become cleaned out—one of the benefits are the improved emissions," he points out. "We work in urban areas and it's good for us to be seen to be doing something to improve local air quality" While Richards has managed a fuel saving, this is something that has so far eluded Hull bakery and convenience store company William Jackson. It has just switched the second half of its 34-vehicle fleet to biodiesel and, according to transport manager John Harvey, the company has yet to notice the difference.
"The first vehicles we ran on it were either doing local deliveries or were trunking along the motorways," he says. "We're just starting the rest of the fleet on it and I'm hoping to get some fuel savings from those vehicles that will be undertaking mixed driving conditions.
"We went into this from the environmental point of view. We are keen to be seen as being environmentally responsible—we won't even be seeing the lower emissions from the biofuel as most of our trucks have particulate traps.
"However, there are overall benefits in reduced CO, emissions and it's not costing us anything, so we are pretty happy," he concludes.