ACCESS A

The vast majority of Burdett’s imposing 88 truck and trailer and multicombination fleet is approved under PerformanceBased Standards. Working predominantly out of sandpits and feed sites in Melbourne’s southeast, New South Wales and South Australia, vehicle specs range from tandems right through to a pair of roadtrains. As a carrier of sand and soil as well as mulch, green waste, firewood, fertiliser and grain, the truck and dog operational spec varies enough to include three-axle dog units right up to six-axle dogs and even several B-doubles.

“If it goes in the back of a tipper we’ll cart it,” says Transport Manager Rod Forth who has been with the company for four years. The fleet is populated by several different brands, most of which share the commonality of having an automatic transmission. The RoadRanger gearbox can be found only in a couple of instances. “Durability is good with the automatics. They return, usually, a better fuel economy because it’s naturally all computerised,” says Rod. “They do have the ability to change manually by the driver but left in auto mode most of them will just do their thing.”

Electronic presets within the truck help to achieve the best fuel return in Rod’s experience given the many variables at play within a truck gearbox. An automatic transmission, he says, removes a lot of potential obstacles.

“If a driver is not driving it properly you get diff wear, gearbox wear, engine over rev, clutch,” he says. “There’s any number of things we can talk about.”

Burdett’s have recently introduced three new Freightliner Cascadias using pusher axles, which is to say a four-axle truck pulling a four-axle trailer. One unit is technically trailing a five-axle dog behind it. These vehicles have been introduced, according to Rod, for the extra carrying capacity.

“With the four-axle truck with a four-axle trailer we’re carting the same capacity as a three-axle truck with a five-axle trailer,” he explains. “So, it shortens up the combination a little bit which gives us greater access.”

Access, after all, is one of the areas the team can make incremental gains in given its vehicles often run between many smaller sites and quarries.

“Once we get over 19 metres, which is virtually our truck and quad dog, we need access permits if we’re off PBS route,” explains Rod. “That gives us a greater capacity. We predominantly use them to come out of our own sandpit at Hallston and cart and feed into our own sites which seems to be working extremely well for us. We’re one of the very few who are running those combinations of the four-axle truck and four-axle trailers. You won’t find much of that across the industry.”

As it’s not a well-known configuration, Rod and Group Director Andrew Burdett, had a series of conversations over the months before they eventually committed to the pusher axle spec. It shapes as a key decision for the fleet.

In addition to the three 116 Cascadias being used in the truck and dog division, there is another five of the new Freightliners dedicated to pulling B-doubles. These are all new purchases. Although it’s still only early days in which to make a data assessment, Rod says the fuel burn figures the trucks are returning is strong indication that these are a superior heavy vehicle. Drivers haven’t wasted any time in expressing their approval of the new Cascadias. Acceptance is, without exception, enthusiastic across the board. For Rod, the standout factor, impossible to ignore, of the new trucks is the sophisticated monitoring they offer through Detroit Connect telematics. “They are way ahead of most others,” he says. “We can monitor driver behaviour