Refrigerated transporter C R England has become a fleet member of the testing organization PIT Group, a research and engineering group supporting the North American transportation industry.
“PIT Group will help us identify opportunities to save fuel, improve equipment longevity and realize a lower total cost of ownership,” said Ron Hall, vice-president of equipment and fuel at C R England. “Their vast research into fuel-saving technologies, corrosion resistance and vehicle reliability will complement our in-house testing and evaluation programs. In addition, there may be future technologies we don’t have the capability to test ourselves, but can recommend the supplier bring directly to the PIT Group for evaluation.”
According to Hall, C R England conducts 15 or more SAE/TMC Type II and Type IV fuel economy tests internally each year.
“We make decisions about which vehicles and components to evaluate based on what might have a potential benefit, but we can’t test everything,” he said. “Part of the return on investment we expect from joining the PIT Group is in reviewing their test reports, and in identifying opportunities that we might not have seen otherwise.”
Salt Lake City UT-based C R England specializes in hauling temperature-sensitive truckload freight, providing long haul national and short- and medium-haul regional truckload services. The firm also offers dedicated and intermodal services.
C R England was first introduced to PIT Group during its Fleet Forum event in June 2016. Led by Dwayne Haug, business development consultant for PIT Group, the Fleet Forum was a day-long event covering a variety of fuel-saving and operational techniques and processes important to fleets.
PIT Group, a division of FPInnovations, is a neutral, third-party organization that focuses on testing technologies and evaluating operational effectiveness for member fleets. Its four main areas of focus are: testing fuel efficiency of technologies using its Energotest, verifying that ELD (electronic logging device) solutions meet US and/or Canadian requirements, assessing fleet operations for areas of improvements and research, and testing and development of smart mobility solutions.
For more details, go to www.thepitgroup.com.