Aquarius aids tacho compliance for McBurney
The McBurney Transport group, one of Ireland’s largest independently owned logistics groups, has signed a five-year extension of its tachograph analysis software contract with Aquarius IT.
Across the group McBurney Transport operates more than 370 vehicles, supplemented by over 1,050 trailers which include 700 refrigerated trailers, and has more than 1,000 drivers on its system, comprising a mix of full- and part-time and agency drivers.
To handle the compliance responsibilities involved with managing a team of this size, across eight sites and in four countries with depots in Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland, England and Scotland, the company started using ClockWatcher Elite, Aquarius’s tachograph analysis system, three years ago. In this time, it has streamlined its entire operation, and reduced the administration time spent on tachograph analysis by 90 per cent.
Lyle Watson, group training manager at McBurney Transport, said: “I’ve worked with tachographs for more than 30 years and encountered many systems, but I’ve never found a system as good as ClockWatcher Elite, in terms of the level of data you can analyse, cross-reference, and report on.
“Its flexibility and inherent ease of use are two other major features – I literally log in on a morning, and the dashboard visually tells me everything I need to know at a glance in real-time, it automates everything for us.
“This also includes automating and visually cross-referencing data related to missing mileage and unaccounted vehicle movements, which is a fantastic tool, that we also use with our telematics system.”
Lyle continued: “Reporting is another key feature. During a recent audit for example, the number of reports we could access at a click of a button – many of which we didn’t know we even needed until we used ClockWatcher Elite – made the whole process seamless. We were able to extract more information than was actually needed for the audit.
“We also noted that the auditor trusted ClockWatcher Elite – this is important because in the past we have used systems where we have found flaws, i.e. where it’s not calculated WTD correctly.
“With ClockWatcher Elite everything is fully accounted for. During this audit process, we also needed help with one of the reports, and the immediate support we received from Aquarius was phenomenal. We have never had this level of support before, and this is another reason why we also wanted to tie into a five-year contract,” confirmed Lyle.
“In summary, before ClockWatcher Elite all our data was historical, but it’s now available at our fingertips in real-time, which for a company of our size, operating out of multiple depots across four countries with remote downloading systems, is paramount.”
Alongside ClockWatcher Elite, McBurney Transport also use Aquarius’s eSign technology for infringement sign-offs and reporting across its eight depots, which enables the sites to effectively manage their own resources and compliance responsibilities.
On Aquarius’s compliance expertise, Lyle added: “They have helped us out so much over the last three years because of their depth of knowledge about drivers’ hours law and the WTD – they have educated us on some very niche areas, which is extremely helpful.”
