Scania high productivity trucks safest in Australian waste transport: Brisbane City Council

Cleanaway Waste Management has endorsed the 18 new Scania commercial vehicles it took delivery of following 12 months of intense application pulling bespoke bulk tippers and rear ejector loaders.

The order of 12 R 560 V8s and 6 G 480 six-cylinder diesel powered prime movers was part of a new contract to transport non-recoverable general waste from resource recovery stations to landfill sites for the Brisbane City Council.

Key criteria for the trucks involved the flexible undertaking of a wide variety of tasks in anticipation of payload increases as the demand for waste services rises.  

A recent performance review of the vehicles afforded Shannon Gorman at Cleanaway Landfill and Logistics Manager Brisbane City Council Resource Recovery & Innovation Alliance – Solid Waste Services, the opportunity to reflect on the many accomplishments seen over the last 12 months.

“At Cleanaway we had initially undertaken a comprehensive review of the Brisbane haulage task as a component of the tender and mobilisation, identifying potentially significant opportunities for productivity gains through modelling and asset configuration,” he said.

“I am proud to say that these gains have been realised. The bespoke Scania high productivity multi-combination bulk waste transport vehicles have had a profound influence on the productivity, efficiency, safety and ultimate success of the essential waste services delivered to the city of Brisbane,” said Gorman.

The high-volume complex spoke and hub reverse logistics chain of Brisbane's massive waste transport task requires an equally complex operating rhythm.

According to Gorman the scale of the task involved safely transporting 500 kilotonnes of waste over 1.2 million km through traffic of a major metropolis in one year.

“We believe that this bespoke high productivity fleet is the safest waste transport fleet in Australia,” he said.

“Operating at Higher Mass Limits (HML) the fleet moves more waste in fewer trips, equating to less congestion, reduced emissions and overall lower impact on Brisbane’s road network,” said Gorman.

A new driver team was formed specifically for the job. Despite many of them not being familiar with European trucks the ergonomic features of the Scania elicited immediate appeal.

“After outlining the extensive array of innovative active, passive and in cab support safety features of the trucks, the team was reassured that Cleanaway’s commitment and investment in safety was real,” said Gorman.

As part of its ongoing service commitment, Scania provided driver training  and Cleanaway observed immediate decreases in fuel consumption coupled with improved truck scoring.

This scoring was used as an incentivised contract maintenance metric.

“In the first month of operation the data rich output we were receiving was confronting, for the first time ever we had absolute visibility of how our trucks were being driven on the road and to be honest it highlighted some inefficiencies,” Gorman said. 

The connected service ecosystem provides intelligent dashboard views, fault identification, remote diagnostics, vehicle tracking, driver and vehicle performance as well as customisable detailed reporting tools.

Having granular visibility to the exact correlation between driving behaviours like anticipation, coasting, gear shifting, acceleration, braking and running costs, according to Gorman crystallised the true value of the driver.

“Recognising the need for a partnership with our drivers, we developed a rewards program to promote good driving behaviour and thank our improving and top performing drivers,” he said.

“We have seen our average score increase greater than 25 per cent over the year, equating to significant financial savings as well as improving safety and environmental outcomes.”

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