Dragons’ Den haulier JPM Eco Logistics has been transporting a life-size herd of topiary elephants around the UK and Ireland for The Survival Tour, which is raising awareness about real elephants made homeless by the destruction of their habitat. The majority of the 13-strong herd has been residing at Selfridges in London, sporting designer blankets by Ralph Lauren, Julian Macdonald and Tommy Hilfiger, however the last 12 ft tall, half tonne elephant was given a home by the Prince of Wales in the Clarence House gardens. The campaign is being spearheaded by London-based charity Elephant Family, in partnership with The Royal Parks Foundation and The World Land Trust, with the tour set to continue throughout the year.
Volvo truck, bus and coach dealership Thomas Hardie Commercials has launched the Little Truckers Club (www.littletruckersclub.com), an interactive web site aimed at getting children under seven interested in the logistics industry. Once signed up each child receives a personalised membership pack and access to the member’s only sections of the site, which offer activities, educational games, downloads, an image gallery and character profiles. Little Truckers Club will also be making school visits with an interactive mobile classroom and has produced a series of illustrated books featuring characters such as Tommy Truck, Carrie Curtain Sider and Wilson Wagon explaining what job they do within the industry.
To mark the launch of a new fire rescue initiative NYK Logistics donated a vehicle for a live demonstration of a collision between an LGV and a car. The pilot scheme is designed to help reduce the time taken to remove casualties from accidents involving LGVs and so far it has been estimated, during a trial in Staffordshire, that more than a dozen lives have been saved. The initiative is the result of a partnership between Staffordshire Fire and Rescue Service and Auto-Rescue Logistics and is being backed by Formula One racing driver Stirling Moss who attended the launch. Stuart Smith, director of safer communities at Staffordshire Fire and Rescue, said: “When we have collisions involving LGVs the availability of specialist heavy recovery equipment and operators does make our service more efficient, enabling our incident commanders to make the right decisions to extricate casualties in the best way possible.”
The Transport for London-sponsored GreenFleet Capital Fuel Challenge took place at the end of July to help find the capital’s most environmentally-friendly fleet. Each vehicle had to travel around London, stopping at four destinations to pick up a parcel. Carbon dioxide emissions were calculated for each vehicle’s journey and points were awarded for taking the shortest route around the course. Courier company CitySprint, in an electric Smith Edison Panel Van, was first over the finish line, while BT Openreach, using a Smith Edison Chassis Cab, clocked up the shortest and most efficient mileage. The judges are now calculating the fuel economy, energy efficiency and carbon dioxide emissions of each vehicle with the overall winner going through to the final round of a wider TfL competition to find London’s greenest fleet, which will be announced later this month.
AFI-Uplift has helped PK Marine Freight Services wrap two 60m x 15m storage tanks in one of the UK’s biggest ever shrink wrapping jobs. The two tanks were covered in a special waterproof membrane for long-term storage at Ellesmere Port Dock before being shipped to an overseas customer. To complete the shrink wrapping process successfully a large area needs to be done at once so PK Marine Freight Services hired two AFI diesel scissor lifts, each with two 1.2m deck extensions, offering a total platform length of seven metres per scissor.
