Section 1 – Introduction

A family run business based in Lincolnshire, specialising in the movement of bulk powders.

We are ideally placed for operations from both the North and South Bank of the Humber, being close to J5 of the M180 and within easy reach of the rest of the motorway network. We provide regular services from the North of Scotland to the South of England as well as middle distance deliveries to any and all parts of the UK.

Mervin Dowse, the founder of our business, was a one-man operator hauling lime for Singleton Birch in the early 90’s, until becoming a limited company in 2003, Mervin’s son, Marc Dowse, became the operations director and took a more controlling interest in the company. Five trucks soon turned to 25 when we acquired contracts with Cemex.

Section 2 – How did you hear about FORS, what prompted the company to join and how long have you been a member?

Cemex made us aware of FORS, which was a requirement for some of the sites to which we were to deliver their products in London. We have been a member of FORS for about 5 years.

Section 3 – What was your experience of the initial FORS Bronze audit?

Dowse Haulage achieved Bronze on our first attempt, a bit daunting at first, we quickly got to grips with the FORS standard and what was expected thanks to the helpful FORS Auditor who explained all we needed to know to become FORS compliant. We encouraged our drivers to do the FORS online e-training, which quickly led us to Silver and now Gold. We arranged for FORS accredited trainers to come to our premises and train our drivers in road safety, SUD. Cycling was not very popular with some of the older drivers! but at the end of the day there were a lot of smiley faces, and some became cycling enthusiast. Using the FORS online training modules, and FORS accredited classroom training significantly raised our standards, earning us a greater respect from our customer’s.

With the FORS accreditation we have gained much more work and evolved into a much larger company with a fleet in excess of 50 articulated powder tankers, which are operated 7 days a week with over 60 staff and drivers to maintain and run our growing fleet of Scania trucks

Section 4 – What was your main reason(s) for you progressing (either from Bronze to Silver and then Silver to Gold or straight from Bronze to Gold)?

The main reason we progressed to Silver & Gold was the requirement of our customer’s in London, they wanted the high level of safety training that came with the FORS accreditation, we also felt that to continue on with silver and gold would encourage our drivers to feel more confident with the knowledge they would gain, to hone their driving skills.

Because of the online e-learning and classroom courses our drivers could see the benefits of efficient driving, the effects it has to the environment and the money that can be saved through switching the engine off instead of letting it idle in traffic. We found that fuel and emissions training modules have been very beneficial in leading to a reduction in fuel, emissions and costs as lorries aren’t excessively running. We also introduced a bonus scheme to encourage our drivers to reduce emissions, which has worked very well.

Reductions in fuel and accidents can be directly linked to FORS online training tool kits,

We have used the FORS Vehicle Graphic Service for all our lorry stickers and found them to be excellent quality and reasonably priced.

The FORS online fleet check portal is a great tool for recording and monitoring all our vehicles and drivers, where reports can be downloaded and used to recognize occurring trends.

The drivers training dashboard is another great tool to record all our drivers training and to plan further courses.

FORS has helped us to set and maintain a standard, making us first choice with our suppliers.

 (Marc Dowse, Managing Director)

Regular FORS training has improved the ability and knowledge of our drivers and has made for a well-informed and happy crew!

(Paul Mansfield, Safety Manager & FORS Practitioner.

Section 6 – What improvements have you made?

• As we have grown, our emissions output has also grown, but the biggest improvement we have made has been educating our drivers through FORS training, to reduce idling times, emissions and the impact that noise has on the environment.
• Incidents have crept up, but this is due mainly to other uneducated road users.
• At least 50% of our fleet enters London every day, in one year we have had 1 PCN for entering a bus lane. An improvement on previous years considering the rapid growth of our fleet and the distances we cover.

	Number of Trucks	Incidents per year	CO2	NOx	PM10	Number of PCNs	Proportion of fleet that uses alternative fuels
2018-19	38	4	4533.97	3659.92	64.43	5	0%
2019-20	43	4	5293.53	6599.89	116.19	3	0%
2020-21	51	12	5493.75	16484.76	290.22	1	0%

Everyone has medical problems! drivers are prone to many ailments, back problems, stress and fatigue, Diabetes and a range of other medical issues because of the long hours sat in the same position for most of their working lives, so obviously we are greatly concerned for their welfare, Our drivers complete a comprehensive medical declaration at the beginning of their employment and is reviewed annually, they are encouraged to eat healthy food and take regular breaks and exercise when possible. There is information available on notice boards and the drivers APP encouraging healthy eating and exercise.

Staff are required to inform the company & DLVA of any change in health or eyesight that may affect their ability to carry out their driving duties legally so that we can plan alternative work more fitting for their requirements.

We conduct eye tests every six months, and the Ishihara test for colour deficiency.

• Due to the Coronavirus, we are following government guidelines regarding social distancing and the wearing of facemasks when entering customer buildings.
• The supply of hand sanitizer is free to all our drivers and whoever visits our premises.
• The recruitment and selection decision are of prime importance when employing a driver, they must contribute significantly towards the company’s effectiveness. It is also becoming increasingly important as the Company evolves and changes, that new recruits show a willingness to learn, adapt and have the ability to work as part of a team. Because of the cost to train a new driver in the use of powder tanker blowing, we generally use drivers with the relevant qualifications required within the industry. Many of the drivers who work for us at the moment is through word of mouth. Regardless of experience, new starters go out with a Dowse senior driver in their first week and assessed before allowing that driver to operate on their own.
• As an ongoing project, Dowse Haulage carry out a full noise assessment of its operational activities, this includes noise levels at our own workshop, our vehicles, and at our customer sites.
• We deliver to over 3000 concrete batching and water treatment works through-out the UK, and the results showed that our operation is no louder than the ambient noise around us, except for the occasional, brief, peak point. Improvements that were made after this assessment were to replace our donkey engines with quieter prop driven blowers, we fitted noise reducing tyres to all our vehicles, drivers are continually reminded to turn their engines and blowers off when not in use.
• Due to the nature of our work modal shift is difficult as we deliver directly to many in-accessible sites for rail and water transport, although in the past many sites were accessible by canal and in some parts of the country, still are! 

Section 7 – What are your plans for the future?

• We have been considering alternative powered vehicles in the future, possibly biodiesel, but hydrogen powered trucks are the future, because our fleet spend much of the time away from base, and if there are not any re-fuelling stations to supply our trucks, we will continue to use what is most prevalent, until that time we will continue to buy diesel vehicles which are, Scania articulated lorries with euro six engines, which we replace every 3 – 4 years therefore keeping up with the current safety and emission regulations.
• My name is Paul Mansfield. Having spent many years at sea as an engineer and travelled extensively throughout my career, I’ve seen the cost of ignorance and complacency. I have spent a lot of my working life in the construction and logistics industry, Oil rigs and civils.

• I took an interest in Health & Safety and achieved my NEBOSH & Diploma in 2003. I have held an HGV licence for 30+ years! and have worked for Dowse Haulage for over 15 of them as a driver, Safety Manager and a FORS Practitioner. I have seen the company grow from 5 lorries to the 51 we have today, and we are still growing!

Section 8 – What evidence do you have of positively promoting FORS at requirement G7?

Our vehicles have displayed the FORS logo since we were Bronze accredited. and promote FORS and road safety through the Dowse web site, e-mails and letter correspondence.

Where possible we encourage FORS in our supply chain. We have several customers who are accredited to FORS. Cemex, Tarmac & Lkab, to name but a few.

Section 9 –What FORS Gold accredition means for your organisation/to you?

As a business that already promotes a high level of road safety within its own organisation. The FORS accreditation will further enhance our status and our ability to attract new customers. FORS gold accreditation also shows our staff and drivers in our own organisation that the work we do, and the impact we have on the environment, will be recognised throughout the industry.

Our Staff and drivers are proud of their achievements and safety record. We have had one serious non-fatal accident in 25 years of trading.

Section 10

www.dowsehaulageltd.co.uk

https://www.linkedin.com/company/dowse-haulage-limited

Section 11 – FORS members’ feedback questionnaire

Please could you take the time to complete a short questionnaire and provide feedback about FORS. Please note all answers you provide will be strictly confidential and will only be used by FORS to help us to improve the scheme. To access the survey, please click the link here: https://www.snapsurveys.com/wh/s.asp?k=153908006313

*Please note: All published FORS Gold case studies have been submitted by the accredited company named above and transcribed verbatim