Dairy farmers in Scotland, Wales and north-west England can be sure of the best possible milk collection service, thanks to Bibby Distribution’s winter fleet preparations.
With winter weather predictions anyone’s guess, Bibby Distribution’s fleet engineering team has incorporated a variety of features onto the milk collection vehicles designed to increase driver comfort, safety and efficiency and ensure another winter of successful collections.
Vaughan Pendergest, Business Unit Director, Bibby Distribution, says: “The milk collection fleet faces the toughest challenges of all our assets. By definition, drivers have to travel on rural roads that will be the most impacted by snow, ice and rain, so we’ve worked closely with them to ensure we give them exactly the support they need to maintain the exceptional collection success rate farmers have come to expect from Bibby Distribution.”
The fleet’s enhancements include high level rear lights to aid visibility during road side collections in country lanes during darkness and periods of reduced visibility, heat lamps installed in the cargo pump cabinets to prevent freezing and angled cabinet doors to provide shelter against the elements for driver and equipment alike.
Each tanker is also equipped with a winter pack consisting of salt trays between the rear axles which can each carry a 25kg bag of rock salt, plus a quick release snow shovel.
Every driver has also been issued with an extensive winter driver bulletin packed full of advice and tips designed to maximise safety when out on the road. Additionally, the inclusion of full fleet telematics has enabled Bibby Distribution to provide tailored training for its drivers designed to further increase their safety and efficiency.
Bibby Distribution’s drivers have already proved themselves adept at making collections in all conditions. In spite of some of the worst flooding in living memory, during Christmas 2015 the 3PL’s award-winning milk collection fleet had to cancel just six collections out of more than 1,300, thanks to the dedication of Bibby Distribution’s drivers and its state-of-the-art fleet.
Pendergest says: “We are immensely proud of the commitment shown by our drivers during the previous winter. Combined with our carefully considered assets, we aim to once again exceed our customers’ expectations and keep milk on the move, whatever the weather.”
Bibby Distribution collects more than 16 million litres of milk per week from farms in Wales and northern Britain – one in every 12 pints transported in the UK.
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