DONARBON WASTE MANAGEMENT, part of the family owned Dickerson Group, has taken delivery of 6 FM-400 8 x 4 trucks, with a further 14 currently on order. Supplied through Volvo Truck and Bus Centre East Anglia based at nearby Ely, this takes the Volvo fleet strength to 67 out of a total fleet of 77 trucks.
Excellent whole life costs and Dealer support are the reasons Donarbon Waste Management are using Volvo trucks on a multi-million pound contract with Cambridgeshire County Council.
Mark Davenport, Managing Director said, "Volvo offers the best support we have from any of the truck manufacturers. We get incredibly good support from Stephen Blackmore and his team. We get reliable trucks that we rarely ever have to do any work on.
The drivers like them, they find them good vehicles to operate, which keeps them motivated as they know they're driving a quality truck. The most important factor when purchasing is the full life cost of operation. It's also the fact that the Volvo products are reliable, this coupled with good quality support when they're older, and at reasonable cost.
The best feature is their reliability and second to this, the aftersales support. There's a market for these quality trucks whenever you wish to sell. The first tranche of six 32 tonners is split 50% I-Shift and 50% manual gearboxes. We've had very positive feedback from the drivers on both and although it's early days, we are getting excellent fuel economy, up to 9 mpg fully loaded."
The additional trucks are supporting a 28 year long Government PFI (Private Finance Initiative) project with a contract value of £734 million over the term. The trucks are engaged in taking Cambridgeshire County Council's household waste from the household waste recycling centres and transferring to Donarbon's main site at Waterbeach, Cambridgeshire.