Ramage Transport reckons its new Mercedes Actros tractor units are getting one mile per gallon better fuel consumption than its existing fleet vehicles.
The Newcastle-based operator carried out a series of competitive trials. Operations director Robin Ramage Jr said: “We knew these trucks would be double-shifted, with regular runs to the South-East and Scotland. The distances involved meant that even small differences in mpg performance would have a major effect on running costs, so a full fuel evaluation was the obvious way forward.”
Ramage obtained demonstrators from several suppliers and ran them against each other in back-to-back trial
“The Mercedes-Benz New Actros recorded the best figures by a significant margin,” said Ramage.
“It was a full mile per gallon better than our established fleet vehicles and when you come across a truck which produces an improvement of that magnitude it gets your attention. So we put it out again, with three different drivers, and again the returns were consistently impressive.”
Ramage has now added ten Actros 2545 BigSpace tractor units to its fleet. It currently runs 90 top-weight tractor units and more than 100 trailers, as well as some smaller rigids and vans.
The Palletways member offers nationwide delivery of anything from a single pallet to a full load, and operates over 150,000 square feet of bonded warehousing on two sites in Newcastle.
