Environment

In order to understand the impact that our business has on the environment, and to continually aim to operate in an environmentally sustainable manner and to also protect the environment for the future. It was important to have a powerful process to make instant decisions at the heart of our business – the automated despatch system.

High-Speed Automated Closest-Vehicle Despatch

One of the most powerful features within our data despatch system is the ability to allocate the closest vehicle to the pick-up location. Our system automatically chooses the optimum route to the pick up point and drop off destinations using GPS; this reduces the amount of dead mileage (the unpaid miles), fuel costs, CO2 emissions and wear and tear on the vehicles

This assists to reduce the number of vehicles travelling without a passenger on their return journey; because the vehicle’s position is constantly tracked using GPS, nearby jobs are allocated to those vehicles improving efficiency across the fleet. Our control centre staff can track each vehicle at any time to see their exact location and also what speed they are driving. The GPS information also automatically calculates the Expected Time of Arrival (ETA) of each job and if the vehicle gets stuck in traffic the ETA is updated; this helps to improve the overall experience and customer service. We also allocate jobs to drivers in advance, so their first job of the day is as close to their home as possible, and at the end of their shift, they can press a “going home” button and the system will only despatch a job to the driver if it is finishing in their home post code or vicinity.

Using GPS technology 20% fewer miles are driven and we can track all of our vehicles CO2 emissions and provide account customers with detailed CO2 emissions statements, encouraging them to be more carbon aware. Our fleet managers are able to report the CO2 emissions by dead mileage, paid mileage and/or total mileage on account customers' invoices as required.
Emissions are calculated using the in-vehicle GPS terminal and the vehicle's manufacturer's CO2 emission specification.

This combination with the selection of eco friendly vehicles is a winning formula in CO2 emission reduction.