Maxi Haulage is the first UK company to reach formal agreement with Volvo on committing to FMS. The programme is underway at the company’s Wrexham depot where Volvo’s Dynafleet telematics system has been installed in a mixed fleet of 21 trucks.

”We have started the FMS programme by running Dynafleet during November at Wrexham,” says Maxi’s Managing Director Alan Miles. “During that period, we will determine the benchmark for fuel usage. We are ensuring that drivers understand what our objectives are and we will be feeding back progress to them. We are committed to best practice and achieving KPIs.”

Maxi’s commitment to FMS extends to three years and it is planned to roll it out across all their locations in 2010.

Driver development and coaching is a major part of FMS and according to Alan, “FMS is about helping drivers to change their behaviour. It also focuses on safety and should also reduce damage.”

He believes that FMS may also deliver reduced insurance costs. An additional benefit is that the Advanced Fuel Economy component of Volvo’s driver development programme - which forms part of FMS - will also provide seven hours towards Maxi drivers’ CPC requirement.

In addition to reducing fuel costs, FMS also provides environmental benefits by creating a concurrent reduction in CO² emissions. “CO² reduction is important to us and our customers. Dynafleet enables us to produce environmental reports which will be a key part of our opening up the data to our customers,” Alan adds.

Making the results of the FMS programme available to customers is an important part of Maxi’s philosophy and culture of open sharing of information. “There are no closed doors for our customers,” explains Alan, “We intend to make our fuel savings results publicly available on the Maxi website. We are also involving customers by inviting them to sit in on meetings and see what the overall situation is,” adding: “This level of visibility ensures maximum pressure on both Volvo and Maxi to deliver the targeted fuel savings.”