Teletrac Navman Fleet Focus

The decarbonisation of freight movements will be a major contributor to global sustainability and climate change targets.

One of the world’s biggest logistics players has a clear timeline for achieving carbon neutrality across its broad range of activities and is spreading the net wide to gather early experience with alternative energy sources and technologies.

DB Schenker is a 100% subsidiary of Deutsche Bahn and since 2002 has been the logistics arm of the state-owned German rail operator. The company’s history goes back much further however and in 2022, DB Schenker has been celebrating its 150th anniversary.

To reach its ambitious declared goal of cl... ... 

While family ownership is pretty much the norm for rural transport companies, mid-Canterbury’s Ellesmere Transport breaks the mould somewhat. Murray Righton, who along with sons Mark and Paul is one of the company’s three director/shareholders, began there 60 years ago simply as an employee, before progressing to management positions, then minority shareholder and ultimately to outright ownership.

Ellesmere has a strongly rural profile, with just over half of its around 40 trucks dedicated to livestock work. They’re backed up by a dozen spreaders, half a dozen bulk units and four flat decks. Truck brands are primarily European, split between Mercedes-Benz, Volvo and Scania.

Ian Newey’s passion for trucking becomes obvious within a few minutes of meeting him.

He’s one of those truckers who grew up in the cab of his dad’s truck. As a kid, it was all he wanted to do — drive a cement tanker, like his dad. Dad Keith Newey owned a fleet of four trucks carting cement. At 22, Ian got the chance to make his lifetime ambition come true, driving one of his dad’s trucks. “I lasted six months,” says Ian. “I got bored.”  

So, cement tankers didn’t have the x-factor, but another budding career had pointed him in the right direction. He had left school at 16 and gone into forestry. He did a government-funded TOPS training course in farm forestry while h... ...