I'm Brian Weatherley, UK jury member for International Truck of the Year.
For the past 25 years, I've been road testing heavy trucks, like this Volvo.
I think I'm a fairly good driver in terms of fuel economy.
But I also know that you can always be better.
That's why I've come to Volvo at Warwick to meet Andy Collett:
Volvo Trucks' driver trainer.
There's no point going out on the road trying to save fuel,
unless the truck is set up correctly right at the very start.
Right tyre pressure, right cab gap,
the cab deflector set right, and axle and trailer alignment spot on.
What's the first thing we'll do when we get out on the road?
Your first run, you'll just drive in position A,
and just do a normal drive with no instruction.
We'll come back, take the readings. I'll count the gear changes,
time taken and fuel used. We'll then repeat the same route.
I'll instruct you the second time, and we'll compare run 1 with run 2.
What's the route going to take in total?
The route's just over the hour. It's a good run. It's a 60-kilometre run.
Hopefully, we'll show an improvement between run 1 and run 2.
What do drivers say when you show them the figures
and show the level of improvement? Are they surprised?
You always get a little bit of:
'I've been driving for twenty years. What are you going to teach me?'
Drivers soon realise that when they come to Volvo for the driver training,
they're here to learn and improve their skills.
Obviously, you've done some fuel economy driving.
I'm pretty confident we have some new stuff to show you that will improve you.
You're confident in route 2 I will be a better, more fuel-efficient driver?
I'm very confident.
That's the end of round 1. I don't think I did that badly.
Andy's looking at the fleet data. He'll tell me just how well I did do.
So, Andy. End of round 1, how did we do?
We did okay. There are some areas where we can improve further.
Use of the cruise control. We'll use the I-Roll function a little bit more.
Maybe a bit of manual intervention,
where we can maybe stop some unnecessary gear changes,
and maybe just tickle it up into the higher gear on the 40 mph area.
Sounds good. Let's buckle up and get going.
We're going on a slight incline now. What's my top tip from you
to start saving fuel, climbing at about 50 mph?
The main thing is, don't use the resume to accelerate back up to a preset speed.
Modulate your speed by using the throttle pedal.
As we come up towards the top of the hill,
we don't want to be powering over the top. Back the throttle off.
The weight is now pushing us along quite happily.
I'm still in 11th, but you'd like me to be in 12th.
I'll go into manual and take it into top gear. I'll roll along in top gear.
Again, we want to encourage the vehicle to be in top gear.
We're coming into a traffic island here.
We can see from the road ahead that there's quite a few cars about.
We want to be arriving at the give way line with nothing there.
Back your brake off and give yourself time. The island's clear.
Just blend in with the traffic. Superb.
We've kept the vehicle moving, we've maintained a good speed.
So, look for that gap in the road ahead, keep it rolling, and try not to stop?
That's right.
Andy, put me out of my misery. Have I done better?
We were 7.43 percent better on fuel on run 2.
We were 2.65 percent quicker on the second run.
And we reduced the gear changes by 17.4 percent.
What would that 7.4 percent improvement actually mean?
If I was, say, a fleet operator running ten trucks,
each truck doing 100,000 miles a year, what would it mean to my bottom line?
An operator running on 100,000 miles
with ten trucks, fuelled at about 6 pounds a gallon...
Based on that 7.43 percent, would save the operator 67,500 pounds in fuel.
That's about 76,000 euros at the moment.
I think any operator would be delighted to have that in their bottom line.
Andy, thanks very much for all your help. Thank you, teacher.