P.M. Executive Briefing - May 1
This Afternoon's Headlines:
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Towing Detours Deliveries of UPS and FedEx Trucks
United Parcel Service, FedEx, and other express-delivery firms are taking the brunt of New York City's crackdown on gridlock, saying business and customers suffer when police tow away double-parked trucks.Urgent shipments can be held up for three hours or more when trucks are towed, and UPS has begun putting an extra employee in each truck to keep an eye out for police while the other employee is making deliveries. A UPS spokesman said the company can handle the tickets - in 1999, it spent $2.7 million in traffic fines in the city - but not the towing.
The UPS spokesman also claimed that U.S. Postal Service trucks are not being towed or ticketed, while Hegarty says police ticket USPS trucks if needed but do not want to tow them. New York Daily News Online (05/01/00); Ingrassia, Robert
Truck Firm Has New Chief
Intrenet Inc. has appointed COO John P. Chandler to the posts of president and CEO effective June 12; interim CEO Eric Rogers will take Edwin H. "Ned" Morgens' place as chairman, while Morgens will still be a member of the board of directors.The carrier said the senior-management shake-up, which began in January 1999 after an investment group with a one-third stake in Intrenet asked the company to add three board members, is now complete.
Rogers put a program in place to reduce the company's expenses when he was appointed interim president and CEO after the resignation of John Delevan in June 1999. Chandler, one of the founders of RPS, was Tow America's CEO prior to joining Intrenet. Cincinnati Post Online (05/01/00); Stammen, Ken
Cabling Enables Simple Brake Monitoring
The British company AEI Cables has created an electronic system to identify brake wear in heavy trucks using wires within the brake shoes, eliminating the necessity of removing the wheels. The company has created a resilient, abrasion-resistant multicore cable that is flexible and small in diameter and has tested it in harsh conditions. Electronic Engineering Times (05/01/00)Wacker Passes Weight Test, to Reopen Monday
The Chicago Department of Transportation has determined that the upper level of Wacker Drive can last another year until its scheduled reconstruction; the street was to reopen Monday. Upper Wacker was tested in two different locations Saturday, during which four 72,000-pound trucks were parked for six hours at each spot. Chicago Tribune Online (05/01/00)Small Change...Big Difference
Giant Food, a grocery chain with 173 stores in the mid-Atlantic region, is currently switching its 300-truck Class 8 fleet over to Mobil Delvac 1, a synthetic diesel oil.An initial test demonstrated a 2.3% increase in fuel efficiency, says John Latham, the former general manager of fleet maintenance, amounting to a total of $71,000 per year if all the trucks use the synthetic oil.
Latham also determined that Delvac 1 could extend its oil-drain intervals to 80,000 miles – four times the amount for the oil Giant had been using – and raise equipment utilization by 37%. This raised staff productivity and enabled Giant to reduce its fleet size.
Other benefits of synthetic oils include good flow and safe starts at low temperatures and less likelihood of high-temperature oxidation, said Reit Lubricants' Jamie Atkinson. Despite the higher price of synthetic lubricants, Latham says Giant will be spending some $100,000 per year less due to the various benefits of Delvac 1. Commercial Carrier Journal (04/00) Vol. 157, No. 4; P. 94
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