From safety to efficiency: innovation and Speedy Hire go hand-in-hand

Innovation and Speedy Hire go hand-in-hand. Electrification, illuminated safety solutions, first responder training, defibrillators in vans; the company has been at the forefront of a raft of initiatives in recent years that go beyond simply operating one of the UK’s most efficient, safe and cost-effective fleets of cars, vans and trucks.

Aaron Powell has been the main catalyst for many of the projects since he was appointed head of fleet in 2000, which marked his second spell at the plant and tool hire specialist.

Promoted last year to fleet and logistics director, bringing together two divisions under one lead, the Fleet News 2024 fleet manager of the year has built a treasure trove of knowledge during his career, as he worked his way up from a 15-year-old YTS to HGV driver through various transport and depot roles and finally into fleet.

While that early YTS was as a computer programmer – the placement just happened to be at a transport company – Powell was fated to enter the sector after his father left the marines to become a truck driver.

“I always, as a child, wanted to drive a lorry, but it wasn't something that I thought I was ever going to do,” Powell said. “I just sort of fell into being in transport.”

He originally joined Speedy spin-off Toilet Hire as group transport manager in 2005 and moved to the parent company as regional compliance manager two years later.

In 2011, he was approached by HSS Hire to become its transport standards manager with a clear career progression which resulted in three years as national fleet manager.

“I never wanted to leave originally but it did me good because I got the room and guidance to learn about the fleet side – vehicle depreciation, lease deals, rather than just driving and logistics - which gave me a good grounding,” Powell said.

A similar role followed at Arrow XL before a short stint as commercial director at fleet management company NRG.

Powell returned to Speedy to take “the role I always wanted” when incumbent Mark Woodworth left.

Mentoring the next generation

Acknowledging the many people he leaned on for advice and support over the years, Powell has taken it upon himself to bring through the next generation of fleet managers by mentoring members of his team. He has also taken on a graduate, a former driver, who wants a career in fleet, a sign of the times where the sector is becoming a desirable vocation.

He references a recent discussion with his mentoree asking about her ambition. Her reply: ‘to do the job of my manager’.

“If you said that a few years ago, they’d want to get rid of you because you were after their job!” Powell quips.

“But that progression is the right thing - we encourage it. There's always that progression plan within Speedy. No one's scared of saying ‘I want your job’.”

Fleet management has evolved rapidly over the past five years, as decarbonisation and electrification demanded new skills to be learned about energy management and workplace charging installations.

The journey to net zero

Speedy has signed up to the Science-based targets initiative (SBTi) with a 2030 net zero timeline. Progress is monitored by external auditors against a roadmap of transitioning an agreed number of vehicles each year to electric.

Around 200 of its 820 vans are full electric, while the choice list for the 600-strong car fleet consists only of full electric or plug-in hybrids. Speedy also has nine electric HGVs (seven 7.5 tonners, an 18-tonne and a 27-tonne) among its 240 trucks.

In common with many fleets, Speedy faces significant challenges on its journey to net zero. Some engineers take vans home with no off-road parking, while its sites are not large enough to house banks of chargers for overnight charging, although some have 11kW chargers.

All electric vehicles are delivered with juice booster cables, which can be plugged into a three phase at home and trickle charged overnight. Drivers also have the Allstar EV card for public charging and are fully briefed about their nearest fast and slow charging stations.

Speedy has also trialled a 40kW mobile charging kit.

“It worked perfectly,” Powell said. “The drivers come in, they charge for half an hour, they've got another 100 miles and away they go. It's definitely part of the solution.”

EV hurdles to overcome

Another EV hurdle is the fact that around a quarter of Speedy’s vehicles tow plant, which is not a viable option for electric due to the impact on range and that fact that most models do not have sufficient towing capacity.

“We’ve said two-thirds of our commercials will be EV or alternative fuel and the rest will run on HVO,” Powell said. “And then we'll offset in other ways.”

He is also considering other possibilities, such as hydrogen, but the company has the benefit of time on its side. Its next major HGV renewal isn’t due until 2029, giving it a few precious years for manufacturer technology to catch-up.

Its EV experiences to date have been largely positive, with vehicles implanted into appropriate use cases, such as urban environments.

“Central London, for instance, has got 10 full EVs. Our Birmingham Depot has got nine EVs and one diesel which is purely for towing,” Powell said.

“The runs they do are within the range of the vehicle, so the 18-tonne operates at Tamworth and does what we call a ‘route to asset’ route which goes around the depots collecting kit and dropping kit off. We know the mileage.”

Boosting vehicle utilisation

However, while he waits for the technology to catch up, Speedy is working on initiatives that will unlock more opportunities, such as a new logistics programme which will improve utilisation of the fleet.

The current process of matching jobs to drivers is highly manual, but Speedy has been trialling an automated planning and routing system at its Leeds depot for the past six months and has just rolled it out to its Birmingham site.

“Because of the industry we’re in, we're quite reactive. So 60% of deliveries you know you're going to deliver tomorrow, but somebody might ring up in the morning and need a cement mixer or a drill today and so you've got to add those in,” Powell said.

“It's not your general parcel deliveries where you know you're going to go to that postcode every day and have 20-30 deliveries from Amazon. But we're getting there with our automated system and we will roll it out across the whole business.

“It will mean we can put more deliveries on a vehicle and keep it out for longer with a more precise delivery time. Our whole fleet might change; we may not need a load of 3.5 vans. We might need more 7.5-tonnes, or bigger, trucks and we can send them out all day rather than just in and out of the depot all day.”

Supplier innovation days

Powell holds regular innovation days with his suppliers, bringing them together to share ideas and inform about products they may have seen in the market.

It was from one of these days that he discovered the FHOSS illuminated safety solution which is now deployed on all Speedy trucks.

“They'd been to see our bodybuilder PBS commercials and PBS introduced us. We’ve developed products with them – the arc at the back and the pedestrian detection.”

PBS also introduced Powell to a supplier of solar panels which are now fitted to the roof of every electric commercial vehicle.

The panels, which work in daylight (rather than sunlight), power all the ancillary equipment, for example tail lifts, winches and power sockets, to stop them drawing power from the main battery.

They have also resolved issues with 12-volt batteries, which can drain when a vehicle is inactive – as Powell found out by chance.

“A driver was off sick for three weeks and his vehicle was fully charged. He came out and it wouldn't start,” Powell explains. “The price to get that vehicle recovered, a new 12v battery fitted and it being off the road was more than the cost of fitting a solar panel to the vehicle.

“Now if the vehicle doesn't move for three weeks, the 12v battery is still getting trickle charged by the solar panel.”

Life-saving defibrillators

Not all Powell’s ideas come from innovation sessions, though. He made the case to install defibrillators on the fleet after his wife, a carer, went to the aid of someone who was suffering a heart attack.

“The guy unfortunately passed away, but a defib may have saved his life.”

So far, more than 350 have been fitted and they now go into every new van ordered.

“The next stage is to train drivers on how to use them,” Powell said. “We didn't want to force people to know how to do it, but I get constant calls and emails saying ‘I've got this defibrillator, I'd like to know how to use it’.

“You can still say no, you can still just hand it over, but if you feel confident then you know you can use it.

“Some of our suppliers who have mobile engineers are also looking at doing it now.”

An ever-present on the Speedy list of priorities is safety. The company has an extensive list of training courses and pre/post incident measures to minimise the likelihood of an crash occurring.

However, it recognises that people’s attention span can be quite low so it has been working with its insurance broker to produce short one-and-a-half minute safety videos which are sent via email to an employee’s smartphone.

At the end, the driver answers a few questions. The hope is that these snippets could replace the need for them to attend a 30-minute e-learning course.
“We've designed a couple of those. The first one is around vehicle and tyre checks and we’ve also done one on accidents,” Powell said.

“We talked to a police officer about attending a scene of an accident: what's going to happen if you're involved, for example, your mobile phones will be seized, you could be arrested if there's if there's a fatality. Then we've got one on a paramedic who talks about attending incidents and then there's a lawyer who talks about what can happen.

“Then there's a pretend accident where the driver crashes a car and the scenario of being interviewed by your manager. It's aimed at the manager as well and the implications of managing it correctly.”

In-house driver academy

Speedy also has a driver training academy and it has recently employer two trainers to do one-to-one driver training rather than outsourcing to a third-party provider.

“Having our own trainers gives us more control and if there’s a serious incident, we can deploy them straight away to investigate,” Powell said.

Technology plays a vital role in protecting Speedy’s drivers, but Powell believes too much sensory overload can be detrimental to concentration.

“There’s more technology to stop you having an accident. But I think the drivers are becoming switched off because they’re not having to pay as much attention,” he said. “The sat-nav tells them where to go, lane departure keeps them in lane, cruise control manages the speed; when something does happen, they’re not reacting quick enough.”

Nevertheless, managed correctly, the benefits outweigh perceived negatives. The latest tech introduction to the fleet is Samsara telematics with AI driver-facing camera, which replaces Speedy’s current provider.

“We’re switching because of the real-time driver coaching from the camera,” Powell said.

Powell did his due diligence before committing to the switch, which on such a large fleet is a massive undertaking. This included visiting existing customers to find out their experiences.

He also ran return on investment calculations on fuel and incident reductions to weigh up the outlay versus the expected savings. All commercial vehicles will go through the change cycle.

2025 priorities

As for his priorities this year, Powell dons his new logistics hat to emphasis the vehicle utilisation improvements he expects to see from the new auto route planning system.

But, as ever, he returns to the need for a persistent focus on safety as well as continuing to seek out new innovations.

I'm holding another innovation day in a couple of months where I'll get all the suppliers in again and say, ‘where are we up to, what have we got, what have you got coming’,” he said.

“Everyone's working on things; it's about knitting it all together and also introducing our suppliers to each other which results in more innovative ideas.”

 

Sponsor comments

Reflex want to wish Aaron Powell from Speedy Asset Services a huge congratulations for being crowned the Fleet & Transport Manager of the Year at the 2024 Fleet News Awards.

Their dedication and expertise have truly set them apart in the fleet industry to afford them this worthy accolade. We are proud to sponsor this particular category which recognises individuals like Aaron who excel in managing fleet expenses, adding value and ensuring the safe and efficient operation of their fleet and drivers.

With driver safety at the core of Reflex’s services, we were honoured to present the trophy to the winner of this category on the evening.