Want to chop your fuel bill?

The price of fuel is bleeding operators dry! Bearing this in mind, we’re thrilled to bring news of Volvo Trucks’ innovative Fuel Advice, a service that aims to help firms reduce total fuel costs. It’s like a personal fitness trainer – for a truck.

Fuel can represent almost 50 percent of total costs for hauliers, so cutting expenses in this area certainly makes sense (or should that be cents?) And, with Fuel Advice, operators can slash 5 percent off their fuel bills.

General manager of Volvo Truck Sales in South Africa, Malcolm Gush, explained to FOCUS how the service works. “Fuel Advice is a personalised service, consisting of three modules: fuel coaching, fuel management toolbox and fuel management support. The customer is assisted in all three of these areas.”

As part of the service, the haulage firm is required to appoint a specialist who is responsible for fuel efficiency and the handling of all contact with Volvo’s fuel advisor.

“The haulage firm is allocated a personal coach who analyses the driver’s driving style, formulating concrete measures to help the firm reduce its fuel costs,” says Gush. “Feedback from the coach takes the form of three different and specific reports, from the entire company, down to the individual driver.”

“The drivers play an integral part in successfully cutting the firm’s overall fuel consumption,” says Mikael Lidhage, fuel management director at Volvo Trucks. “Our driver training courses in eco-driving have proven themselves to be effective.”

“Fuel Advice will be an excellent independent source of information to assist the customer to manage his fuel costs,” says Gush. “The whole point of the service is to improve quality in all fuel-saving measures and, by giving the customer on-going feedback, these measures become increasingly natural and easy to use.”

Fuel Advice complements Volvo Trucks’ existing Fuel Management Service, which is primarily designed for larger haulage firms. “With Fuel Advice, even smaller haulage firms have the chance of benefiting from personal supervision,” explains Lidhage.

The service is currently only available with the new FH Series, which has been launched in Europe. It will become available as of the start of next year for previous models (those equipped with Dynafleet).

Volvo Trucks South Africa will implement the service locally early in 2014. We can’t wait!