New trailers and technology incorporated into the fleet

As part of our ongoing business development plan, we’ve recently been making some changes to our internal processes and our fleet, to ensure our consistently high standards can be maintained moving forward, whilst also ensuring the efficiency of our operations.

“Some of the changes we’ve made have addressed the trailer fleet policy we have in place,” explains Daniel Wood, operations strategy director here at Fagan & Whalley. “This particular policy has been updated to reflect our new initiative, which will see updated trailers being brought into the fleet to replace existing ones every five years, as opposed to every nine years, which is the timeframe we currently work towards.

“This latest adjustment to our policy forms part of an ongoing fleet replacement strategy, which will involve new tractor units and new rigids also being incorporated into our operations. This will help us to ensure the highest standards can be maintained, whilst also keeping those boxes ticked in terms of compliance, especially with regulations constantly being updated, such as with the new Direct Vision Standard which has now come into effect.”

The Direct Vision Standard (DVS) is the first legislation of its kind in the UK. Effective from 1st March 2021, the DVS requires all vehicles weighing over 12 tonnes to have a permit for travel within Greater London.

This new regulation seeks to provide a safety rating for all HGVs based on the driver’s range of visibility when in the cab. This is evaluated as a star-based rating, from zero (poor) to five (excellent). All vehicles which fail to achieve the minimum star rating must have additional safety measures fitted after the point of manufacture, such as mirrors, sensors, audible warning systems, and a camera monitoring system, in order to permit them to travel within Greater London.

“We’ve successfully installed brand-new camera and warning systems in fifty of our vehicles, so they’re now fully compliant with the new standards and ready for travel on the M25, in and around London.

“The legislation is set to change once more in October 2024, when further additional features, such as safety windows in cab doors, will be made essential. We’re currently awaiting further developments and announcements from our vehicle suppliers.

“We’ve been keen to adopt a development strategy which falls in line with these new standards, and we’ve set out plans to continue to add to our fleet and invest in new equipment. We’ll be acting upon any new guidance accordingly to ensure our fleet continues to comply with national safety regulations, so that we can remain operational for our customers, and maintain the favourable position we’ve worked hard to achieve at the forefront of our industry.”