April 2017 Volume 37, Issue 3
TRUCK NEWS Eastern Canada’s Trucking Newspaper Since 1981
Delivering daily news at trucknews.com
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Page 46
Moving on up
Platoon or LCV?
Downtime treatment
Ready for spring?
An interview with Daimler Trucks North America boss Martin Daum, as he prepares to take on global role.
With all the talk of truck platooning, we ask long combination vehicle fleets if there’s anything to be gained.
Emissions systems are a leading cause of downtime. Here’s how fleets are addressing the issue.
With warmer weather on the horizon, here’s how to ensure your equipment is prepared.
Pay to park
RET ADVERTAIL ISING P AGES 47 -
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Are pay-to-park policies at Canadian truck stops inevitable? By Treena Hein BELLEVILLE, ONTARIO In late January, a driver for Elmwood, Ont.-based PHTS Logistics woke up to a ticket on his windshield after parking and sleeping for the night at the 10-Acre Truck Stop in Belleville, Ont. When PHTS president Philip Heard was alerted, he wasn’t impressed. In Heard’s view, it was an unpleasant way to learn about the new 10-Acre policy of charging for overnight stays. “It sounds like every trucker parking at the 10-Acre woke up with City of Belleville parking tickets on their windshields,” he says. “These tickets are made out to the truck owners by licence. What a terrible way to treat customers.” Heard has since discovered that 10-Acre had announced the change with a parking lot sign and notices Continued on page 8
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Heather Jones, one of the international speakers at this year’s Women with Drive Summit.
An international perspective Guests from trucking industry in Australia, New Zealand visit Canadian carriers across the GTA By Sonia Straface CAMBRIDGE, ONTARIO ome international trucking executives got a polite and educational welcome to Canada in early March, when they visited some of Ontario’s most successful carriers. Trucking HR Canada invited the international guests and panelists at its Women with Drive Summit to get acquainted with the Canadian trucking industry by visiting a number of Canadian carriers to see how things are done here. “This year attendees of the Women with Drive Summit will be fortunate enough to hear from leading ladies around the world and we thought it would be a great idea to invite them early and show them the local facilities in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) and how they compare to what they have back home,” Anita Gara of Trucking HR Canada explained. One of the four carriers the organization’s international guests visited in March was Challenger Motor Freight in Cambridge, Ont. Challenger has more than 1,300 trucks and is one of the most recognizable names in Canadian trucking.
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Geoff Topping, senior director of human resources at Challenger, said the company was grateful for the opportunity to host Trucking HR Canada’s guests. “We like working with Trucking HR Canada on various things,” he said. “But we’re very proud of our facility and proud of our people and we’re proud of everything we do here at Challenger. So, two things we’d like to do (here) is share what we do and maybe try to pick up tips from them.” The two international guests Challenger hosted at its enormous 126,000 sq.-ft. facility were Heather Jones, the director and owner of Success Transport in Western Australia and Meryn Morrison, the health and safety compliance manager for Regal Haulage in New Zealand. Both Jones and Morrison got to sit with senior Challenger employees, swap and share ideas, and to take a tour of the entire facility, where they learned about all of Challenger’s different departments, like dispatch and training. Jones said the tour was interesting to her and that she especially liked the driver accommodations at the facility. “Challenger has a lot of facilities for their drivers that most companies in Australia don’t have,” she said. “Like driver rooms, a cafeteria, plus a fabulous workshop area and truck wash area.” Continued on page 36