UK trailer manufacturer innovates for retailer
Trailer manufacturer Gray & Adams has developed a ground-breaking lifting-deck urban semi-trailer to meet a specific requirement for client Morrisons.
The 11m tri-axle trailer has been built to service a Morrisons store in Norfolk with restricted access. The additional carrying capacity offered by the second deck will allow the retailer to eliminate one 250-mile round trip delivery each day, saving and fuel and reducing carbon emissions.
Morrisons operates more than 100 Gray & Adams lifting deck trailers at the standard 13.6m length, but this is its first short trailer.
The new trailer is equipped with a Carrier Vector 1950 single-temperature refrigeration system, new glass-fibre reinforced plastic ECO Air tanks by BPW, and Gray & Adams’ latest panel cappings. These are more aerodynamically profiled than its previous one-piece cappings, which helps to reduce fuel consumption and gives the trailer a modern, streamlined appearance.
The new trailer will enter service immediately after being displayed at the Temperature-Controlled Storage & Distribution Show next month, and make daily runs from the retailer’s regional distribution centre at Latimer Park, Kettering, to its store in Gorleston, Great Yarmouth, 125 miles away.
Morrisons Head of Engineering John Ward explained the company’s specific requirements for the new trailer. “Access to this location is severely restricted. It’s on a busy road so we can’t reverse out and there isn’t enough room to turn a tractor and 13.6m trailer.
“We’ve therefore been serving this store with four deliveries per day by single-deck urban trailers. The introduction of the new twin-deck version will allow us to take one of those vehicles off the road completely. We project that through fuel savings we’ll recoup the extra cost of the lifting deck in just nine months, while the new trailer will also help to improve our environmental profile.”
In addition to their new trailer for Morrisons, Gray & Adams will also be displaying a 10.5m single-deck urban trailer with command steer axle at the TCS&D Show. The trailer features ThermoKing Spectrum multi-temperature refrigeration and a Dhollandia power closure tail-lift.