How reduced idling helped TIL Freight improve its fuel efficiency

EROAD’s idle reports can identify instances where fuel has been wasted through excessive or unnecessary idling or a poorly tuned vehicle. After pulling a report, Guy saw that most idling was happening in their container group so decided to start there.

TIL’s fleet includes two types of container vehicles: skeleton trailers, where the container is lifted on using a forklift or combi-lifter, and swinglift trailers, which have movable lifting arms that make a forklift unnecessary.

Until the late 2000s, most swinglifts relied on the vehicle to power them, requiring the driver to leave the ignition on. Now, nearly all have their own auxiliary motor, but drivers who had worked for TIL since those days were still in the habit of leaving their trucks idling, and the EROAD data showed that. While compliance dictates one-on-one driver management regarding overspeeds, the topic of idling hadn’t been discussed with drivers before.

Rather than simply telling them to turn their trucks off, Guy decided to draft a pilot programme proposal. With the help of all the container division managers, he developed an inclusive consultation process and reviewed TIL’s standard operating procedures, which contained nothing specific about idling. From there came the idea of hosting an informal Toolbox Talk, with a one-pager explaining the cost of idling to the business.

“And it wasn’t just the managers, because not all managers have driven a truck before. To develop a better understanding, we also did a lot of talking with drivers themselves,” Guy says. “We went out with drivers in the trucks, walked through the process, and went over the exceptions.”

Then, without fanfare, TIL transport analyst James Beckwith put the EROAD Leaderboard up on the breakroom TV.

Leaderboard is a unique EROAD feature that gives each driver a star rating out of 5 based on performance criteria including overspeeds, idling, and fuel efficiency, but without spelling out exactly what each driver did or didn’t do. Those ranking in the top 10 percent earn a five-star rating, and this blind benchmarking can compare all EROAD drivers across your fleet, New Zealand – or Australasia.

“I didn’t want to name and shame people,” Guy explains. “The idea was just to put it up there, not say anything, and see if people would naturally lift themselves.”

TIL Christchurch quietly took this laissez-faire approach for five weeks and saw an across-the-board improvement: Between July and September 2020, fleet idling dropped by more than 68 percent and overspeeds by 48 percent. Many of the container division’s double-shifted units went from 10 to 15 hours of idling per week to fewer than five.

“We had a dramatic improvement in driver ratings on EROAD as well. It created that positive competitive atmosphere where guys would come in on Monday really keen to see what their rating for the previous week was.”

Using EROAD’s advanced analytics, Guy compiled fuel efficiency data to establish a benchmark and identify which trucks were performing poorly and the possible reasons why.  That data, shared at a recent branch meeting in Dunedin, told the team to look at three things: “One, is it driver behaviour that’s leading to poor fuel efficiency? Two, is it the wrong truck for that job? Or three, is that the truck is old and needs to go?”

On that first point, the simple act of sharing idle reports in the breakroom induced a drop in linehaul idling that translated into increased fuel efficiency at the Christchurch branch. Compared to July 2020 and earlier, fuel transactions in September dropped by more than 37 percent as a direct consequence of the reduction in idle time.

“The plan is to showcase what the Christchurch branch has done to other branches. I’ve put it out there that if you want to emulate what we’ve done here, just get in contact and we’ll set it up. I’ve already had three branches do that.”