Since we seem to be heading for a phased lock-down over the next few weeks, what has the effect been on road transport in the last couple of days since the PM’s address to the nation on Tuesday night?
Well panic buying seems to have kicked-in again… or panic ordering by the supermarkets. Orders for RDCs have ramped up yesterday and today. We were already flat out and have been for weeks. Our containers division has never been really quiet since March, Since early September container volumes have been massive, so has the economy really tanked to the extent we are led to believe? I get the problems in hospitality and leisure, but the underlying economy does seem healthy. Our only division that is still quiet is the aviation fuel operation, and drivers have been deployed elsewhere.
So, where are we heading with the latest forecasts of doom and gloom?
My diary is filling up fast for next week it won’t be long before I’am full that’s lorry crane & trailer ,sprinter crane & trailer and Tractor unit . Eg for the foden a load for export packing ,a day and half at sewage works ,up to 2 days running between the council & fire service and perhaps some new generator deliveries for Covid test sites ect .
Things seem to be very busy & I hope these new rules don’t bring the economy to a stop.
I have tried four paint companies today to sand blast a hook lift & also a skip motor, earliest
I can get them done is January as they are all packed out with work.
Well even though I am out of the day to day I am informed by my two sons that we have had the best trading 4 or 5 months we have ever had in fifty years doing the job but we are mainly into Pharma and food transportation so I suppose we are in the right job right now. Over the years in this business you usually find that benefits come from other peoples problems take the Bosnia war, when that kicked off we had a good eight years work taking out supplies to our troops based there and that was subcontracted from another haulier to boot.
On another note today I visited Mackro for general supplies also catering for the needs of me two boys, got some loo rolls and kitchen rolls and when I went to check out the cashier said that yesterday he had someone with 25 packs of bog rolls on there trolley when it clearly stated on the isles no more than four packs the bloke then got niggled but was made to take them back, its purely panic buying and as Graham has said his traffic has increased purely by this factor alone, will people ever learn surely not from the evidence we see, Cheers Buzzer.
I don’t know if it is still the same but one of our club members works for a local Derbyshire minerals company and when I spoke with him in June while ‘full lockdown’ was in place he said they they were the busiest they had ever been during all the years he had worked there.
Regarding loo rolls: our Sainsburys shelves were almost empty yesterday and they were going to ration them when new supplies arrived. However today in Iceland one women had several multi-packs in her trolley. I haven’t noticed any shortages of other items though.
We never stop i will have done around 67 hours by saturday noon . It’s been the same all the way through but the waste game is always busy. I noticed though right from the start of lockdown that there were plenty of lorries on the road. I think some companies are abusing the furlough scheme big style . As for bulk buying toilet rolls what’s all that about is it the thought of getting Covid 19 could give you the Earth Kitts ?
dave docwra:
Things seem to be very busy & I hope these new rules don’t bring the economy to a stop.
I have tried four paint companies today to sand blast a hook lift & also a skip motor, earliest
I can get them done is January as they are all packed out with work.
That’s due to Dennis putting his Big J’s with the 240 Percy’s back,on the road!
The above comments support what I’ve been hearing for weeks from contacts across most sectors of the industry. It is very busy. What has changed, and is still changing, is the peak work volume days. I have drivers starting shift patterns on every day of the week except for Friday and Saturday. Pre-Covid this gave me maximum driver availability on the busiest days (I don’t use agency drivers due to the specialist requirements of flour tankers, and some of the 'fridges are trampers).Now I cannot predict what the busiest day in the week will be. In four weeks out of the last five it has been Wednesday, which would have been unheard of pre-Covid. Saturdays and Sundays generally have got busier.
Colleagues who use agency drivers are telling me that there is a shortage of agency drivers, maybe because many Eastern Europeans are thought to have gone home.
I’m on an 18 tonner on one of the pallet networks, we normally send 4 double decker to the hubs lately its been 5. We’re flat out with Internet orders and also stuff like the plastic screens for shops, hotels etc, hand cleaner and blue roll.
Traditionally this time of year is where the parcel sector start to ramp up. I worked for Parcelnet/Hermes for a few years and september was when we were ordering as many box trailers as possible on hire. I’ve noticed agency rates have really dropped off unless you are self employed but they have just started picking up again. The problem as i see it is new agencies seem to be popping up all the time undercutting other agencies and there’s only one loser