I saw it coming… I had just driven past Magboro and gradually approaching the tail-end of the popular ‘long bridge’ inward Lagos when my professional roving eyes wandered to my left, the outbound portion of the Lagos-Ibadan express road. Then I saw it and suddenly I was overtaken by a cold chill that ran all the way down to my spine. […]
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‘RICE & BEANS’ PHENOMENON IN DIESEL CONTAMINATION
The Root Cause The World Bank Report of 2000 and several other reports have shown that kerosene is principally used to adulterate diesel on account of the price differences between the two fuels. Facts on ground at least in Nigeria tend to give some credence to this. As stated in one of our articles, diesel market is a completely deregulated […]
Continue reading »WHAT YOU NEED KNOW ABOUT DIESEL FUEL CONTAMINATION
Prologue: An Unpleasant Experience A couple of months ago, a notable haulage operator shared a sad experience on diesel fuel contamination with us. Mid 2012, six units of less than a year old 30tonnes truck-trailer were dispatched to haul products for a contract client. Trucks were loaded and fueled at client’s fuel dump. Abuja, Nigeria’s Federal Capital Territory (FCT) was […]
Continue reading »FUELING OPTIONS FOR TRUCKERS
Whether you run a large fleet or a modest one, there is a fueling option that works better for you. Except in a worst case scenario as you would find in a ‘force majeure’, there is absolutely no justification for why an up and doing fleet manager should fail in ensuring his trucks are adequately fueled and ready to go […]
Continue reading »FUEL MANAGEMENT PLAN: WHY YOU NEED ONE
Why you need a Strategic Fleet Fuel Management Plan Rising diesel prices, epileptic product availability, increasing incidences of fuel contamination, an unsteady economic outlook and shrinking supply of qualified drivers have all combined to change how you need to manage your fuel program. In an era where fuel expense occupies the biggest slice of every haulage company’s total operating cost […]
Continue reading »FUEL ECONOMY (PART TWO)
Fuel Economy and Efficient Driving Behavior The following is a short list of behaviors exhibited by those drivers that consistently obtain good fuel economy. Studies have shown that a consistently efficient driver can achieve 30% or more fuel economy than an inefficient driver. Simple behaviors, like coasting to a stop instead of staying on the accelerator until the last minute […]
Continue reading »FUEL ECONOMY (PART ONE)
Fuel Economy in Haulage The importance of fuel economy to the successful operation of a trucking company cannot be understated. Fuel is one of the largest variable costs in a trucking venture, and, while no trucking operation can control the cost of fuel, it has at least some control over the amount or rate of consumption which in turn determines […]
Continue reading »THE AGE OF INTELLIGENT ‘DRIVERLESS’ TRUCK BECKONS
We’ve had intelligent unmanned cars, planes, carriages, shuttles and what have you. But not so much about Intelligent trucks until probably now! The line between reality and science fiction is about to shrink further as the age of autopilot intelligent trucks creeps in much closer than ever. And who else to take this paradigm shift to a whole new level […]
Continue reading »Sample Haulage Services Contract
Since we uploaded our article titled “Haulage Contracts (Part One & Part Two) a couple of months ago, we have received a barrage of requests from several haulage service providers wanting to have a specimen contract that fully addressed all the critical areas we mentioned in the article and which can also be easily customized to suit their operations. Today, we […]
Continue reading »FLEET MANAGEMENT SOLUTIONS AND VEHICLE TRACKING SYSTEM: ANY DIFFERENCE?
Fleet Management Solution and Vehicle Tracking System: Not a few have come to see both terms as two sides of the same coin. Some in fact believe that they are same in value proposition and only different in semantics. The latter probably explains why it is convenient to pass of a comprehensive insurance proposal incorporating a vehicle tracking system as […]
Continue reading »DEPLOYING FLEET MANAGEMENT SOLUTIONS: NIGERIAN BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT IN PERSPECTIVE (PART TWO)
Offline or Out-of-Coverage Storage of Trip Information: In view of the level of development of our communication backbone which is not yet at per with what obtains in the economies from where most of these packages originally come from, it is of uppermost importance that critical questions be asked about the options available for data capture, logging and access and […]
Continue reading »DEPLOYING FLEET MANAGEMENT SOLUTIONS: NIGERIAN BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT IN PERSPECTIVE (PART ONE)
Under the “telematics” umbrella is the integration of Global Positioning System (GPS) technology, computers and mobile devices. The successful coupling of telematics and GPS technology has opened the door to a wide range of beneficial new features that has further expanded the frontier of possibilities in fleet management. At the click of the cursor, you can get information about the […]
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