FreightBestPractice

Key Performance Indicators for Food and Drink Supply Chains 2009

Benchmarking Guide

Acknowledgements

Thanks are due to the following businesses which took part in the Survey. The time and effort put in by their staff in attending workshops and gathering data is greatly appreciated. Drink Adnams Bargain Booze Everards Brewery Fuller Smith & Turner Inbev Norbert-Dentressangle (Threshers) Shepherd Neame Waverley TBS Wincanton Food ACS&T Apetito Asda Booker Cold Move Co-op Stobart Group Fine Lady Bakery Gist Great Bear Howard Tenens Keystone Distribution UK

Langdons Nestle Norfolk Line Pepsico Re-Vision Logistics (NISA) Samworth Distribution TDG Stone (J Sainbury) Tesco United Biscuits Vitacress Wincanton (Heinz)

Contents

Foreword 1 2 Introduction The Key Performance Indicators

2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8 2.9 Survey Statistics The Survey Day Vehicle Fill Empty Running Time Utilisation Delays (Deviations from Schedule) Consumption and Energy Efciency Operating Restrictions Fuel Use and Emissions Standards iv 1 3 4 5 5 7 8 13 15 19 19 21 21
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Conclusions
3.1 3.2 Levels of Efciency Summary

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Foreword

The role of Key Performance Indicators is well known and established throughout all sectors of industry. They provide a simple, focussed measure of performance, and so provide management with a short, concise picture of what is happening in their operation. Over the past few years, the Department for Transport, through the Freight Best Practice programme, has supported a number of surveys that have developed a range of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) in a variety of industry sectors. The KPIs have provided those in the freight industry with a consistent measure of the levels of efciency being achieved within their sector. Comparing, or benchmarking, their own performance against those KPIs provides the opportunity to focus on those aspects which are most likely to yield performance improvement. This Benchmarking Guide aims to provide operators with those critical comparisons, and hence to help them improve efciency, reduce operating costs and to reduce the impact of road transport on the environment.

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1.

Introduction

As far back as 1992 the Department of the Environment supported a project on improving vehicle efciency through aerodynamics, through the Energy Efciency Best Practice programme. This was followed by the establishment of a discrete transport efciency programme in 1994, which by 2005 had evolved into the Freight Best Practice Programme. Work within the food sector started in 1997, and was followed by larger Surveys in 1998 and 2002. The subsequent Survey in 2007, for the rst time, included the drinks sector. In each case the results of the Survey enabled participants to benchmark their individual performance against that of other companies within their sector. The 2009 Survey, which again includes the drinks sector, follows the natural progression of earlier work and shows a continuing commitment by the Department for Transport to provide road vehicle operators with the means by which to compare their operational efciency with their peer group. Those companies who have participated regularly now have an additional measure of their progress over the years, and all road freight operators, both within the food and drink sectors and others, have another benchmark of operational performance against which to measure and compare their own operational effectiveness.

The overall aim of this Survey, and indeed the ones which preceded it, is to stimulate and support existing efforts to improve efciency in the operation and use of vehicles by: Providing measures of efciency levels being achieved in the food and drinks sectors Enabling companies to measure their own efciency against that of the industry as a whole Stimulating and supporting existing efforts to improve efciency in the operation and use of their vehicles. On the Survey day 12 March 2009 the activities of over 4,700 tractors units, trailers, and rigids were closely monitored and recorded. All of these vehicles were operating in the food and drinks sectors, and covered the movement of product from producers to the ultimate point of sale. The data gathered enabled the operational efciency of those vehicles to be analysed, and measures of that efciency, i.e. Key Performance Indicators were established. Comparisons with previous surveys will show general trends and the levels of efciency within the sector. However, there have inevitably been differences in the eet mix in the various Surveys and is impossible to be sure that the results represent an absolute like for like comparison. The Survey gathered information in three broad categories: General information covering the details of the vehicles being surveyed size, type, capacity, age, fuel consumption Detailed data on a journey by journey basis, for all journeys undertaken during the sample period An hourly audit of vehicle activity during the sample period.

As in 2007 this Survey has included tractor units as well as semi-trailers and rigids. In order to make the results as reliable as possible, and, therefore, the most useful both to participants and subsequent users of the Guide, it is important that data gathering is carefully prescribed. Standardised software was used as the medium to assemble the information and enable computer analysis. Following the use of a 24 hour data sampling period in 2007 it was decided that 24 hours was perfectly adequate. As had been expected the reduction to 24 hours imposed less data gathering on participants without detracting from the value of the results. A broad measure of weekly activity, and daily activity for each day of the survey week was also gathered for each eet. This provided a measure of variations in throughput and hence the validity of the chosen Survey date and day.

2.

The Key Performance Indicators

Additionally, for tractor units only, there was running solo (i.e. on the road but without a semi-trailer).

The main KPIs used in the 2009 Survey were the same as those used in the 2007 and earlier Surveys. With due regard to the caution expressed above about like for-like comparisons, this Survey does provide operational measures which can now be traced back for more than ten years. The main KPIs were:

4. Delays (formally termed Deviation from Schedule) This is the measure of the delays suffered by the vehicles in the Survey. Categories of delay were: lack of driver, delay at vehicles own base/point of departure, delay at a collection point, delay at delivery point, trafc delay, vehicle breakdown, vehicle accident. 5. Fuel consumption Data was requested for each vehicle type within the Survey. Performance over a sustained period was required and so data covering three winter months was requested.
The unit of measure for fuel consumption is again miles per gallon. Operator feedback suggests that miles per gallon (mpg) is still the measure which people use and relate to most readily. The Survey covered all aspects of the movement of nished food, i.e. food that is ready for sale rather than raw materials. Denitions were provided for companies taking part so that the allocation of eets to particular parts of the supply chain would be as consistent as was reasonably practicable. Activities were separated into: Primary: Movement of saleable product, work in progress, returns, packaging or handling equipment between a supplier and factory/ factory and NDC/NDC and customers RDC, Hub depot or Wholesale depot including C&Cs Secondary: Movement of saleable product from retailer RDC or Food Service Hub depot into retail outlet or picking depot. In addition, the return of equipment or goods from outlet to RDC or Hub. Tertiary: Movement of saleable goods from a factory, regional or picking depot, including wholesaler, into the nal outlet where product is consumed i.e. home, pubs & clubs, small independent corner shops, retail forecourts or restaurants

1. Vehicle Fill This is the measure of load carried, compared with vehicle capacity, on each vehicle journey. This was measured, for the food sector, by load height, payload weight and load unit numbers. For most loads in the food Survey product was carried in unit loads, i.e. a roll cage or wooden pallet. Where this was not the case, conversion factors were used to enable the creation of a pallet-equivalent measure.
For 2009 only one version of the software was used, and all drinks eets used tonnage as their load measure, as was the case in 2007. The tonnage measure can only be regarded as providing an approximation of load volume since in itself it gives no indication of load mix, i.e. kegs/casks/cases, cans, bottles etc. However it is widely used in the industry and was the measure used by all participants.

2. Empty Running This is the distance which a vehicle runs empty, that is not carrying product or equipment, usually the nal leg of a journey when the vehicle returns to depot or moves on to another point at which it collects a further load. 3. Time Utilisation This was the measure of what vehicles were doing at each hour through the sample period. The seven categories used were: running on the road, awaiting loading/unloading, being loaded/unloaded, pre-loaded and awaiting departure, driver daily (overnight) rest period, vehicle idle (empty and stationary) and maintenance or repair.

Figure 1 Food Distribution Channels

2.1.

Survey Statistics

Table 2 Survey Statistics (drinks) 2007 No. of eets Tractor Units Trailers Rigid vehicles Journeys Tonnes delivered Kilometres travelled 22 363 644 268 956 12,716 172,028 2009 36 70 136 374 507 2,943 95,311

A total of 78 eets, from both food and drinks sectors, participated in the Survey. The eets surveyed comprised 1,436 tractor units, 2,765 trailers, and 559 rigid vehicles. During the 24 hours the food sector vehicles delivered over 56 thousand pallet equivalents, and those in the drinks sector delivered 2,900 tonnes of product. Total distance run for both groups of vehicles was almost 800,000 kilometres. Tables 1 and 2 show the Survey Statistics. Table 1 Survey Statistics (food) 1998 No. of eets Tractor Units Trailers Rigid vehicles Journeys/24 hrs Pallets delivered/24 hrs Kilometres travelled/24hrs 36 1,393 1,952 182 2,012 103,101 580,956

2002 53 1,446 3,088 546 3,034 110,329 727,111

2007 91 2,286 4,052 1,362 7,064 147,645 1,226,408

2009 42
1,366
2,629
185
2,499
56,147
693,833

NB Prior to 2007 Surveys covered two days, and the Surveys in 2007 and 2009 covered only one.

space. The Survey also asked for tonnage carried and for vehicle carrying capacity. The second key measure was typical height of a load within the vehicle. Participants were asked to provide an estimate of the typical load height prole across their operation. There was no requirement to measure actual loads on the day of the Survey due to anticipated practical difculties, but most operators were able to supply representative numbers for their typical load height prole. The average height used on laden trips is shown below in Figure 3
Figure 3 Distribution of heights on loaded vehicle trips (food)

2.2

The Survey Day

As in 2007 the Survey covered a single day. Activity on the sample day (Thursday) compared to the remainder of the week is shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2 Percentage of volume delivered across the week

2.3
Food

Vehicle Fill

The results show that many companies are unable to fully utilise the typical available height within a standard vehicle of around 2.1 metres, which allows for air circulation in temperature controlled vehicles. Across all trips in the survey on the sample day, the mean height utilisation gure was 68%, around 4% lower than that in 2007 Table 3 shows a change in prole since the 2007 survey, with more vehicles being loaded to heights of less than 1.7 m. Table 3 Vehicle height utilisation (food) %age of trips by height used 2007 2009 7% 36% 29% 28%

The measurement of vehicle capacity in the food sector is relatively complex. Vehicles will either weight out, i.e. the payload limit is reached, or, more usually, they will cube out i.e. the vehicle is lled before reaching its allowed payload limit. For this survey, as with the previous ones, the fundamental unit used was the pallet, being regarded as having base dimensions of 1 m by 1.2 m. Where companies used different handling methods roll cages, cartons, or dollies with tote boxes for instance the number of these carried was converted into pallet equivalents, that is 1.2 square metres of vehicle deck

under 0.8 m 0.8 1.5 m 1.5m 1.7 m Over 1.7 m

5% 28% 32% 35%

This appears to be an opportunity for signicant improvement but there are a number of obstacles which prevent using the cube. These include an inability to stack certain products due to fragility or instability, or a requirement to supply pallets of a particular height to customers, or a customer requirement for single stacking to facilitate their own handling methodology. The average utilisation at the start of journeys for each eet is shown in Figures 4 and 5.
Figure 4 Average deck utilisation by eet (food)

Taking all food trips within the survey the average utilisation at the start of the journey, measured by use of deck space, was 83.1%, and by weight was 57.2%. Across the three activity streams in food the levels of utilisation, measured at the start of the vehicles journey, were as shown in Figure 6 below.
Figure 6 Vehicle utilisation by activity (food)

Drinks
The average height used on laden trips within the drinks sector is shown below in Figure 7.
Figure 5 Average weight utilisation by eet (food) Figure 7 Distribution of heights on loaded vehicle trips (drinks)

Utilisation of height within drinks eets is to a large extent governed by methodology used. Many dray operations carry kegs and casks loose within the load, and so stacking, to any great extent, is not practical. The primary eets, delivering mainly into the food retail and wholesale sectors can stack pallets of canned or bottled drinks, and by the use of locator boards, can also stack kegs and casks. Across all journeys in the Survey on the sample day the mean height utilisation gure was 58%.

Table 4 Vehicle height Utilisation (drinks) %age of trips by height utilised 2007 under 0.8 m 0.8 1.5 m 1.5 m 1.7 m Over 1.7 m 13% 48% 39% 0% 2009 6% 71% 21% 2%

2.4

Empty Running

Empty running is widely seen as the bane of commercial vehicle operation since it usually represents mileage which is being run without direct commercial benet or purpose, at best returning or moving on to collect another load. Of the 789,000 kilometres run by the vehicles during the Survey, just 22.9% of food vehicle kilometres were empty, while the corresponding number for drinks was 19.5%. These show a slight improvement since 2007 when the corresponding gures were 23.7% and 20.3%. The question of empty running is made more complicated in the food sector by the use by many retailers of roll-cages for the inbound supply to their stores. Having been delivered to stores with product they must of course be returned to Distribution Centres for re-lling. This return journey takes up a vehicles load space, even when the roll-cage design allows the cages to be nested when empty. Since the cage is empty it can be argued that the vehicle is also empty, since it carries no saleable product, and that the carriage of empty roll-cages is the result of the mode of delivery operation chosen by that retailer. The alternative view is that a vehicle loaded with empty roll-cages is full. Whatever the view, in practice the carriage of empty roll cages takes up space and prevents the carriage of other, usually palletised goods, such as new product from a supplier. The proportion of empty kilometres run, i.e. those without any product, is shown in Figure 9.
Figure 9 Proportion of kilometres run empty, (food)

Within drinks the measure used for vehicle utilisation is weight, and Figure 8 shows the average weight utilisation at the start of a trip for each eet.

Figure 8 Average weight utilisation by eet (drinks)

Taking every trip by all drinks vehicles within the Survey the average weight utilisation was 56.7%. In the case of drinks vehicles, particularly drays on pub/club deliveries, most operators use tonnage including keg/cask beer and bottled beers, wines, spirits and soft drinks) as a measure of vehicle ll. However, although kegs or casks are heavy, the vehicles rarely use their full weight carrying capability. Vehicle operators use a notional vehicle capacity, in tonnes, for load planning, based on their experience of what will t onto vehicles. This notional capacity is rarely, if ever, the same as the vehicles legal weight carrying capacity, and there is often a difference of several tonnes on a typical 17/18 t vehicle. Due to the inherent difculties of handling and securing, kegs and casks are rarely stacked on drays and so the load height is usually low.

very much less than in food, with many of the drinks eets not recording any, due to the return of kegs and casks. The extent is shown below in Figure 10.

Figure 10 Proportion of kilometres run empty, by eet (drinks)

Empty running is an inevitable part of vehicle operation in the food sector and the extent of it is dependent on both the nature of the journey primary, secondary or tertiary and on the way that vehicle delivery routes are planned and executed. A primary route may involve a full load delivery to a single point and then a return. If no arrangements for a backload are made then 50% empty running will result. A secondary or tertiary delivery route will usually run the last leg empty, but the length of that last leg, and hence the proportion of empty running can depend on the way that the journey is planned. If deliveries are done on the outbound part of the journey, up to 50% (returning mileage) may be empty, whereas running out to the furthest point and ofoading on the way back may leave only a short empty leg back to base after the last drop. Table 5 gives the percentage of empty miles by activity for the food sector. Table 5 Empty running by activity (food). Activity Primary Secondary Tertiary % of kms empty 24.9 22.4 15.9

2.5.

Time Utilisation

Vehicle activity over the 24 hour period was measured by recording the main activity of each vehicle for each hour of the Survey. Trailers and rigids in the food sector spent 23% of the time running on the road (Figure 11), a gure which is signicantly lower than that recorded in 2007. Although vehicle operation is seen as being a substantial expense the Survey shows that, in the food sector, vehicles spend slightly less time (47%) active on the road, loading/unloading, or delayed than they do inactive. Again this is a reduction on the numbers seen in the 2007 Survey.

Figure 11 Vehicle activities (trailers and rigids)(food)

In the case of the drinks sector the return of empty kegs and casks is inevitable. They are the only means of supplying draft beers and lagers and far too expensive to be anything other than returnable. The amount of empty running within the drinks sector is

Figure 12 Vehicle activities (tractor units)(food)

Separation of vehicles into activities, i.e. primary, secondary and tertiary shows a number of differences. In primary operations vehicles spend 23% of their time idle and stationary, whereas in both secondary and tertiary the idle time was around 33%. It might be expected that primary vehicles would be spending more time on the road since factory to depot operations offer more opportunities for efcient load scheduling. Within the 2009 sample group however the converse was true with 21% of time on the road compared with 38% for tertiary. Notably the tertiary vehicles spent relatively little time loading and unloading, perhaps supporting the image of a number of small drops, usually carried out by the driver, at a delivery point where the vehicle is liable to cause obstruction and there is every incentive to have it quickly on its way.
Figure 15 Vehicle utilisation by activity (food)

The comparisons above clearly show the benet of using articulated combinations where the time spent on the road by tractor units was 44% compared with just 23% for rigids and trailers. The gures for trailer and rigid activities in the drinks sector are shown below.
Figure 13 Vehicle activities (trailers and rigids)(drinks)

The data also enables us to consider the spread of activities across the 24 hour period and the differences here are very marked. Figures 16, 17 and 18 show marked differences in levels of activity over 24 hours across the primary, secondary and tertiary eets. Whilst the numbers are slightly different to those obtained in 2007 the overall proles remain very similar.

Figure 14 Vehicle activities (tractor units)(drinks)

Figure 16 Time utilisation primary eets (food)

Figure 17 Time utilisation secondary eets (food)

Figure 18 Time utilisation tertiary eets (food)

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2007 and also conform with the expectation that most chilled produce is fresh and is required to be in shops at the start of the day. Overall the four preceding gures show that although much activity does take place out of hours there are still marked peaks. Even allowing for the need for retailers to manage their stocks and stafng levels effectively, and for commercial vehicles to operate in harmony with local residents, the results suggest that there is still an opportunity for the sector as a whole to look again at further out of hours deliveries.
Figure 20 Tonnes delivered in each hour (drinks)

Whilst the activity of primary eets is spread relatively evenly across the whole 24 hours secondary eet activity is more varied. There is substantial activity across the whole period but with a clear increase in activity starting at around 04:00, and a gentle and consistent decline from around 13:00. This prole is somewhat atter than in 2007. The prole for tertiary activities is also somewhat atter than in 2007 with more activity taking place in the hours from 12:00 onwards. The 2009 data stills shows a predominantly day operation however with a peak occurring in the hours between 07:00 and 10:00.
Figure 19 Standard pallets delivered in each hour (food)

Figures 21 to 23 show the patterns of activity across the day in the drinks sector. Within primary the activity, as with food, is spread across the day although much of the loading and ofoading activity is done within the normal working day. In both secondary and tertiary the activities are predominantly carried out in the day, with some preloading being done out of hours so that vehicles can be despatched promptly during the early morning. Where deliveries are being made to pubs these take place almost exclusively during a fairly narrow time band, driven by what is acceptable to publicans to t in with their opening hours.

The survey also shows the patterns of activity within the different temperature regimes. All three regimes show a peak during the early part of the day, but it is most marked in multi temperature operations. This is in contrast to 2007 when the clear peak was in delivery of chilled product. It is possible of course that much of the mixed product being delivered in the early hours of the day was chilled. This would align more closely with

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Figure 21 Time utilisation primary eets (drinks)

Figure 22 Time utilisation secondary eets (drinks)

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Figure 23 Time utilisation tertiary eets (drinks)

2.6. Delays (Deviations from Schedule)

Delays incurred in vehicle journeys continue to be a major factor in planning transport operations, and it is likely that this will become ever more important as operators seek to utilise spare capacity on return legs. Of all causes of delay trafc congestion is the one which has the highest prole, especially in the eyes of the public. In practice however delays caused by trafc congestion are just part of a much broader problem. In the food sector in 2009 trafc congestion caused 26% of the delays incurred. This is actually a fall compared with the 2007 gure of 32%, although this may be due in part to recording delays on a whole journey basis rather than leg by leg. Minor delay due to trafc may

well have been recorded against individual legs in 2007 and overlooked in 2009 if, in the drivers eyes, it was dwarfed by a more substantial delay. For many drivers this will seem counter intuitive but it may be the result of better planning through greater knowledge of trafc conditions and road speeds, and the use of this knowledge in ne tuning computer vehicle route scheduling systems. It may also be due in part to the general belief that trafc volumes have fallen somewhat due to fuel prices and the impact of the recession on general levels of road activity. These views are of course speculative but the results show that 70% of food sector delays were caused by own company action, or by problems incurred in making deliveries or collections. As in the previous Survey these numbers suggest that the opportunity for improvement lies in the areas over which management has some control. Clearly this is not a simple issue since delivery and collection points are generally very busy and subject to disruption but nevertheless these are the activities which generate over two thirds of the delays. Whilst comparisons with previous Surveys can be unreliable it is perhaps worth noting that the percentage of delays caused by delivery problems has increased from 26% in 2007 to 39% in 2009.

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Figure 24 Delay by number of occurrences (food)

On average, a delay lasted for one hour and three minutes, an increase of 12 minutes over 2007, which was itself an increase of eight minutes on 2002. The lengthiest delays were those caused by vehicle breakdown, in contrast to lack of driver in 2007. The combination of length of delay and number of occurrences gives a measure of overall impact. The picture is very similar to that obtained from looking at occurrences, with a total of 78% of time lost being incurred at own premises and delivery and collection points. Within the drinks sector the numbers look somewhat different, partly because of the nature of the work.

Figure 25 Average length of delay by cause (food)

Figure 26 Total length of delay by cause (food)

In the case of drays the vehicles are subject to many of the same delays experienced by vehicles in the food sector. For many, however, there is the opportunity to minimise the effect of delays at ofoading points by moving on to the next customer, and then returning to the one that was not ready to receive a delivery. This informality is not generally available within the food sector, but can be useful where consecutive deliveries are geographically close. The other element of pub deliveries is that it is not unusual for dray crews to deliver out of sequence where they believe that this will be benecial. This may or may not bring benets in efciency but it invariably makes it difcult to assess delays, and to understand

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the effectiveness of planned routes and opportunities to improve them.

Figure 27 Delay by number of occurrences (drinks)

comprehensive it is still clear that the majority of delays, 58% are caused by delivery and collection problems. Compared to the food sector the average delay was slightly longer at one hour and 19 minutes, with collection problems causing the longest delay. Combining number of delays with length of delay, as with food, does not change the overall picture by very much with collection and delivery problems accounting for 61% of time lost.

2.7 Consumption and Energy Efciency

Fuel Consumption
For all the differences in the sector however the overall picture remains very similar to that found in food. Whilst the reporting of delay was not as
Figure 28 Average length of delay by cause (drinks)

Fuel consumption data was requested for the period October 2008 January 2009. It was considered worthwhile specifying a three month period to allow sufcient smoothing of company data to give a representative gure, but also to minimise the effect of vehicle replacement programmes had a longer period been requested. The overall results were: Table 6 Fuel consumption by vehicle type (mpg)(food) 1998 Small rigid Medium rigid Large rigid Drawbar Urban artic Medium artic Large artic 9.0 (3.2) 8.8 (3.1) 8.2 (2.9) 2002 2007 2009

11.3 (4.0) 13.1 (4.7) 15.4 (5.5) 10.4 (3.7) 10.2 (3.6) 9.8 (3.5) 11.5 (4.1) 10.4 (3.7) 8.8 (3.1) 10.4 (3.7) 10.1 (3.6) 8.8 (3.1) 9.0 (3.2) 9.0 (3.2) 8.2 (2.9) 7.2 (2.5) 8.5 (3.0) 10.0 (3.5) 9.3 (3.3) 8.6 (3.0) 8.8 (3.1) 8.5 (3.0)

Figure 29 Total length of delays by cause (drinks)

(Table 6 shows kms/litre gures in brackets)

As with most of the other data gathered direct comparisons with previous surveys is unreliable due to

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the composition of the sample group and the type of work and journeys undertaken. However it is worth noting that in only three vehicle categories small and medium rigids and city artics has fuel consumption improved. Large artics returned the same gure as 2007, with large rigids and medium artics showing a deterioration. Table 7 Fuel consumption by vehicle type (mpg)(drinks) 2007 Small rigid Medium rigid Large rigid Drawbar Urban artic Medium artic Large artic 8.6 (3.0) 7.0 (2.5) 8.5 (3.0) 8.7 (3.1) 8.3 (3.0) 15.1 (5.3) 8.0 (2.8) 8.2 (2.9) 2009 15.8 (5.6) 10.7 (3.8) 10.0 (3.5)

Within several vehicle types there is a wide range of fuel consumption levels, which this year applies to all vehicle types. The range will be caused by a number of issues including the type of journey undertaken, weight of product carried, and the power used by ancillary equipment especially refrigeration units. The numbers do suggest that fuel continues to be an aspect of vehicle operation which must attract management attention. The nature of the work probably cannot change but the range of fuel consumption gures reported suggests that there may be opportunities for improvement. Corresponding data for drinks is shown below.
Figure 31 Fuel consumption by vehicle type (drinks)

(Table 7 shows kms/litre gures in brackets)

As in 2007 fuel consumption in the drinks sector was poorer than food in all vehicle categories, except small rigids. This may be due to the nature of the work, i.e. short journeys with large number of deliveries in predominantly urban areas in the case of dray vehicles and running at fairly high weights in the case of primary activities. Compared with 2007 the gures show an improvement in all vehicle types except for maximum weight artics.
Figure 30 Fuel consumption by vehicle type (food)

Energy Efciency
It is now over ten years since the Kyoto agreement was rst negotiated, signicantly raising the prole, for businesses and individuals, of the need to reduce CO2 emissions. Recognition of the need has further increased in the two years since the last Survey and a number of major businesses within the sector have undertaken changes to the way that they operate. In considering supply chain emissions it will always be necessary to evaluate the whole supply chain, of which transport is just part. It may be that the most effective means of producing and delivering food to the consumer, from an environmental point of view, does involve transporting food over long distances. What is important for the transport operator is that each transport operation is run as efciently as possible, and that emissions are thereby minimised.

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It has always been difcult to make meaningful comparisons of transport efciency between different operations. There are many variables which will affect any measure used, including: the nature and geographical range of the work undertaken efciency of load planning how is time utilised? the correct specication of vehicles are they the right size and type? it is very easy to ll vehicles which are smaller than they should be the fuel consumption achieved by those vehicles. All of these factors affect efciency, i.e. the amount of fuel used in moving one unit of load from origin to destination. In the last two Surveys a composite measure pallet kms per litre was used in order to bring some of the variables together. It has not been clear that this measure has met with a great deal of acceptance simply because it combines elements without creating a clear and informative picture. For 2009 two different measures have been used to which we believe operators will more readily relate. These are litres per unit delivered and kilometres per unit delivered, the rst of which is shown below. The chart shows a range of values and since distance and circumstances will vary there is little apparent

correlation between primary, secondary and tertiary operations. When considering the environmental impact of the way that food supply chains are constructed, further measures will become important, and food miles remains a headline measure. This type of survey cannot readily identify food miles since it does not follow food throughout its entire supply chain. As in 2007 we do however have measures of the number of miles run in moving a quantity of goods within the nished goods part of the supply chain. Figure 35 shows the average gures for each eet by activity. In contrast to 2007 this Survey has not shown a good correlation between activities which perhaps might have been expected. The 2007 results generally showed tertiary eets generating high kms/pallet gures, due, presumably, to predominant use of small vehicles, whereas primary eets, typically carrying at

Figure 32 Litres used and CO2 emissions per pallet delivered (food)

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Figure 33 Distance travelled - kms/loaded pallet (food)

least 26 pallets for each kilometre recorded lower gures. Overall the gures are lower this time with some eets exceeding 50 kms per pallet in 2007. NB Figures 32 and 33 refer to pallets. In many cases this is the way that participants reported throughput. In some cases however other units have been used, roll cages or trays for instances, and for these eets quantities have been converted to pallet equivalents. The corresponding graphs for the drinks sector, where throughput was exclusively measured in tonnes, are shown below.

Figure 35 Distance travelled - kms per tonne (drinks)

Figure 34 Litres used and CO2 emissions per tonne (drinks)

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2.8 Operating Restrictions

In 2007 the Survey covered, for the rst time, the extent to which eet operations were affected by local authority restrictions or by restrictions placed by customers. This was repeated in 2009. Delivery restrictions have signicant impact with 53% of food eets and 92% of drinks eets reporting customer delivery time restrictions. These compare with 40% and 59% respectively in 2007. The extent of the restrictions is shown below.

50 eets reported annual costs incurred, with a range from 30 to over 77 thousand pounds. The range is shown below.
Figure 38 Fines and charges by eet

Figure 36 % of customers with delivery restrictions (food)

2.9 Fuel Use and Emissions Standards

Participants were asked to specify the type of fuel used, and, where more than one type was used the ratio between the types. There were no eets within the drinks sector using anything other than standard specication diesel. Amongst the food eets ve were operating solely on bio-diesel. A further four eets were using a combination of standard diesel and bio, one of whom was also using a small quantity of compressed natural gas. In answering the question participants were asked to ignore the small amount of bio which is included in all diesel, and only to claim use of bio if they were using a fuel with a higher percentage of bio content. Participants were also asked for the extent of the impact of parking nes and tolls on their operation.

Figure 37 % of customers with delivery restrictions (drinks)

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Since the last Survey the limits on vehicle emissions have been further tightened. Whilst Euro II was becoming the norm in 2002, by 2009 it has become virtually extinct. Indeed the dominance of Euro III in 2007 has been rapidly eroded, and in 2009 the combined total for Euro IV and Euro V exceeded Euro III by 15%. Figure 39 shows the rate of change.
Figure 39 Euro Emission Standards of Surveyed Vehicles

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3
3.1

Conclusions
Levels of Efciency

Vehicle Fill
The amount of product carried, or vehicle ll, is one of the most important measures of utilisation and hence efciency. In most cases vehicles carrying food products will be full in terms of volume used before the vehicle reaches its weight carrying capacity. Compared with the 2007 Survey the use of height within vehicles has deteriorated. The 2009 Survey had more loads with less than 0.8m of the vehicles height used, 7% compared with 5%, and 28 % of trips had product over 1.7m compared with 35%. Utilisation of vehicle deck space increased from an average of 75% to an average of 83%. Weight utilisation saw a further slight increase from 55% to 57%. The drinks sector is substantially different. The product is heavy and, in many dray operations with a mix of product being delivered, is notoriously difcult to stack. Average weight utilisation was 57%, which is very much lower than in 2007.

be a long one if deliveries are made on the outward journey, with the last drop at the furthest point. In 2007 the levels of empty running averaged around 24% for the food eets and 20% for drinks. In 2009 the corresponding gures were 23% for food and 19% for the drinks eets.

Time Utilisation
Some measures of time utilisation are worse than those in 2007 with tractors, trailers and rigids in the food sector spending less time on the road. Idle time for tractor units has increased slightly, but reduced for trailers and rigids. In the drinks sector vehicles spent more time on the road and incurred less idle time. Taken across the day it is clear that primary movements have remained a largely 24 hour operation. Secondary operations are now spread across 24 hours with a clear peak during the period which might be regarded as a normal working day. Tertiary operations are substantially a day operation, but are moving towards a seven day week.

Empty Running
Empty running is seen as a measure of serious vehicle inefciency and most companies will try to eliminate it since, almost by denition, vehicles cannot be earning revenue when running empty. In practice the level of empty running will often depend on the type of operation being considered, but also within operations, on the way in which vehicle routes are planned. Multi drop loads tend to have the lowest empty running since only the last leg is empty. That last leg can, however,

Delays
The data for Delays shows mixed results when compared with 2007. The proportion of delays caused by congestion in the food sector was 26%, down from 32%, and the time lost was 15% down from 19%. In the drinks sector the congestion caused 25% of delays, up from 21%, and 17% of lost time compared with 13%. There may be a number of reasons for this, such as improved vehicle routing and scheduling packages and the possibility that trafc levels have fallen due to fuel prices and recession. It is also likely, though not quantiable, that lower road speeds are being used in planning systems, i.e. congestion is planned in to vehicle routing.

21

3.2

Summary
Opportunities appear to exist for improvement in vehicle utilisation in terms of load height. The average ll, by area, of 83% already being achieved in the food eets, and the limitations imposed by customer service requirements will probably make further progress increasingly difcult. Empty running appears to have decreased slightly in both food and drinks eets. Time utilisation remains an issue with trailers and rigid vehicles running on the road for less than one third of their available time. In food tertiary and drink supply chains most of the activity takes place during the day, offering more opportunity for out of hours deliveries. This is much less the case in secondary operations. Primary activities are already well spread across the whole 24 hours. Vehicle operations still experience delays due to trafc congestion but the biggest impact, as in 2007, is caused by delays within suppliers or customers premises rather than by trafc congestion. The proportion of delays caused by trafc congestion was lower in the food sector but higher in the drinks sector when compared with 2007. There have been changes in the levels of fuel consumption achieved with better results from rigid vehicles, but little overall improvement from tractor units. The advent of seven day trading led to transport activities becoming more evenly distributed across the week. However, Saturday and Sunday trafc accounted for slightly less activity than in 2007.

In summary the results show:

The most important message for both sectors however is that most delays, and most time lost, occur off the road during loading and unloading, and not on the road.

Fuel Consumption
In 2007 the Survey suggested that overall fuel consumption of vehicles within the food sector had not improved drastically since the rst survey in 1998, but in 2009 the picture is somewhat varied. For rigid vehicles there has been some improvement, both in the food and drinks sectors. Lightweight articulated vehicles showed improvement in both food and drinks, but in the larger vehicles the results remained similar to or worse than 2007. The reasons for these levels of change cannot be readily identied from the Survey. There will have been many changes in the nature of the food supply chains since 1998, and it is almost certain that the mix of the eets which have taken part in the last three Surveys will have changed. Within some participants there is a view that fuel consumption improvements will inevitably plateau as emissions standards continue to tighten, and also that there is a fuel consumption penalty in the use of bio fuel.

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Freight Best Practice publications, including those listed below, can be obtained FREE of charge by calling the Hotline on 0845 877 0 877 or by downloading them from the website www.freightbestpractice.org.uk
Saving FUEL
Fuel Management Guide
This is the denitive guide to improving the fuel performance of your eet. It gives step-by-step explanations of the key elements of fuel management, how to measure performance and how to implement an effective improvement programme.

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This guide provides step by step advice for creating a comprehensive CO2 inventory and the benets this can bring. It provides templates to enable the reader to monitor the amount of CO2 produced by its Trucks, Vans, Warehouses, MHE and Company Cars.

Developing SKILLS
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This case study provides examples of change management and motivational techniques employed to improve efciency and morale in three transport operations.

Multi-MODAL
Interactive Multi-modal Map coming soon
This map allows you to identify terminals that could be used to transfer loads from road to either rail or water (or both). The map provides details on where these terminals are located, who operates them and how to contact them. It should be your rst port of call to transferring to alternative modes of transport.

Equipment & SYSTEMS

Make Back-loading Work for You
This guide shows you how to nd and choose backloads in order to improve your eet efciency.

Case STUDIES
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Performance MANAGEMENT