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How to Avoid Tired Tyres and Prevent Unexpected Mishaps

For anyone who makes a living transporting courier loads across the city, nothing is more important than keeping your vehicle (or fleet) maintained and in good working order. Making the ‘daily walk around’ a habit is the best way to ensure you’re staying on top of any potential issues – and one of the most essential things you should be checking is the state of your tyres.
Tyre Inspections Done Right

A cursory glance and a casual kick to the rubber as you get in your van to deliver your daily courier loads is definitely not the way to carry out your inspection. The condition of your tyres affects not only your van’s performance and fuel economy, it also plays a huge part in terms of safety on the road. So just what should you be looking for?

Check the Tread

When a vehicle is being used to transport courier loads, wear and tear happens far more quickly than in a private vehicle, due not only to the miles travelled, but also to the fact that it’s carrying heavier weights. Checking the tyre tread regularly is vital to ensure optimal safety and traction on the road, and if you neglect this, you risk a blow out – which can prove disastrous. Checking the depth of the tread is easy when you know what to look for: if the shallower horizontal ‘tread wear indicators’ are close to being flush with the deep lateral grooves, you’re heading into dangerous territory and it’s time for a replacement.

Under Pressure

Maintaining the correct pressure (aka PSI) is important for the optimal performance and longevity of your tyres. Manufacturers are required to provide the recommended PSI (pounds per square inch) so there’s no excuse for not knowing what it is. A good tip is that you’ll get a more accurate PSI reading in the morning, when temperatures are cooler. Incorrect inflation not only leads to increased fuel usage and reduced economy, it also contributes to excessive wear – meaning you’ll need to replace more often.

A PS on PSI

Another factor to bear in mind is that, if you’re carrying heavier courier loads, the pressure will go down so if you have to travel a long way with a full van you should regularly check your PSI levels. Perhaps make it a rule to do this every time you fuel up so you remember. It’s a very good idea to carry a handy pressure gauge in your toolbox, which will save you from having to use the service station ones and means you can do it at any time.

For anyone who’s not clear how and where to find the recommended tyre pressure, it can be in one of several places. It might be inside the door of your vehicle, in the owner’s manual, within the glove compartment or on the back of the fuel cap door. There are also multiple online tools you can use to check the manufacturer’s recommendation.

Keeping your tyres in tip top condition doesn’t have to be a chore. Make the checks a part of your daily routine to give you total piece of mind that your vehicle is transporting your courier loads as safely as possible.

Author Plate

Norman Dulwich is a correspondent for Courier Exchange, the world’s largest neutral trading hub for same day courier loads in the express freight exchange industry. Numerous transport exchange businesses are networked together on their website, trading jobs and capacity through what is now the fastest growing Freight Exchange in the UK.

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Make Allocating Work Easier with TopBox and Courier Exchange

In a sector as fast moving and competitive as the courier industry, efficiency is always key. Businesses need to be able to fill drivers’ time with deliveries, make every journey count, meet client needs – and do it all quickly, simply and profitably. Luckily for those of us working in the industry, technological advances are always providing better means to do all this.
In this article, we’ll run through the integration of booking system TopBox with popular freight exchange Courier Exchange (CX), summarising how using both of these tools can help your firm reach its peak performance.

TopBox

Not to be confused with filesharing service DropBox, TopBox is a cloud-based system that facilitates same-day courier bookings. It has a range of crucial functions for fleet controllers, allowing them to view:

• All active jobs • All collection and delivery points • Real-time whereabouts of all drivers.

Developed by DA Systems (you can visit the company’s website to get a more in-depth overview of the product) and using Google’s maps technology, TopBox provides massive efficiency savings. And what’s more, it’s now integrated with the very popular online CX freight exchange.

Courier Exchange

With over 38,000 members, CX is the UK’s busiest and fastest growing freight exchange, attracting customers with the user-friendliness and a wealth of features including real-time updates on available loads and access to a vast ‘virtual’ fleet of drivers.

Integration

Many businesses use the platform to buy and sell capacity. The reason for this is simple: it’s much better to ensure a job gets filled than to leave the client to search elsewhere. This function also helps avoid wasted time and mileage, making it much easier to ensure drivers are always travelling with loads.

But how does this link to TopBox? One of the app’s best features is that it can show all available drivers within a given radius of a job. Managers can of course expand the search radius to see if they have a courier nearby. But even then some vehicles may simply be too far out to make delivery practical.

Enter CX. Unfilled jobs can be sent over to the online exchange with the touch of a button – a user just has to just click ‘Allocate to CX’ and the job will be automatically posted without any more input needed from the driver. Users no longer need to click out of TopBox and into CX to manually allocate work.

Even better, drivers are instantly notified of the posting, and can accept or reject it immediately. This lets controllers know instantly whether the job has been filled – and to try different strategies if it remains unfilled.

All in all, the linking of DA Systems’ booking and tracking program with CX’s freight exchange allows managers to far more easily fill jobs. Crucially, it also keeps clients happy, reducing the chance that any deliveries will go unfulfilled.

Author Plate Norman Dulwich is a Correspondent for Courier Exchange, the world’s largest neutral trading hub for same day jobs in the express freight industry. Connecting logistics professionals across the UK and Europe through their online freight exchange transport businesses are networked together, trading jobs and capacity through what is now the fastest growing Freight Exchange in the UK.

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The Pollutant Problem: Tests Show Truckers are the Worst Affected

Those in haulage work are facing a number of issues at the moment. Whether it’s driver shortages, increasing fuel prices or the pressure to ‘go green’, the transport industry is certainly under stress. Currently, one of the main (and most important) problems for drivers is their exposure to air pollution.
Though pollution is being tackled in a number of ways (such as with the introduction of eco-friendly, electric vehicles and various charging stations all around the country), the health risks for those in haulage work are still being overlooked by the government. So, what is being done to change how this occupational health hazard is being perceived?

Testing Underway

After a number of different experiments were performed by environmental charities and experts from London universities, it was discovered that HGV drivers had the highest exposure to pollutants in comparison to office workers and construction workers.

One such experiment was completed with the help of a mobile air quality monitoring vehicle (or, the smogmobile). Thanks to the smogmoblie’s technical capabilities, nitrogen dioxide (an invisible toxic gas) could easily be detected while on the move, both inside and outside the vehicle. It has been said that this kind of pollution leads to thousands of health problems each year in the UK, so it’s clear that we need to change how we’re using fuels – and fast.

There are several air quality monitoring stations around the UK used to show trends in pollution over time, but their lack of mobility does not paint a very accurate picture. With the smogmobile, it is much easier to estimate how much exposure lorry drivers have to pollutants.

Campaigning for Action

With the risks high and pollutant exposure only increasing for those in haulage work, the British Safety Council are starting to act alongside the #AirWeShare campaign in a bid to put pressure on the government to recognise the dangers of this occupational health hazard. The council are hoping that the government will take action and help companies find ways to reduce their staff’s exposure to pollutants.

The head of campaigns at the British Safety Council, Matthew Holder, stated that quick action is vital to reduce these risks for workers across the country. He said that ‘if you work outdoors, drive or commute in a polluted area, your health is at risk… [Employers are] waiting to see if the government and the regulators are going to act’.

There is hope for the future, but it’s no secret that something needs to be done soon if health hazards are going to be reduced. People in haulage work have huge exposure to bad quality air, and they aren’t the only ones suffering the consequences. As soon as the government recognises this, the better.

Author Plate

Norman Dulwich is a Correspondent for Haulage Exchange, the leading online trade network for the road transport industry. Connecting logistics professionals across the UK and Europe through their website, Haulage Exchange provides services for matching haulage work with available drivers, and is now the fastest growing Freight Exchange in the UK.

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