The story as a whole is quite interesting and just goes to show that high fuel prices and congestion can certainly help to focus minds on getting freight off the roads. It was this line that caught my interest though: “international courier firm DHL is looking to move urgent mail from central London to Heathrow by speedboat to avoid congestion in the capital.”

I’ve been unable to find out any more information on DHL’s proposed scheme, an email to their Press Office went unanswered, but it’s certainly an intriguing possibility. However, I looked into the feasibility of a scheme like this a few months ago and quickly discounted the idea as being of little value to the same day courier industry or to any other sector of the express delivery business.

While a speedboat would certainly avoid some road congestion, it’s never going to be able to deliver direct to Heathrow because Heathrow isn’t on the river. So a van, or bikes, would be needed at both ends to transfer the ‘urgent mail’ from the collection point(s) to the speedboat and then from the speedboat to the cargo centre at Heathrow. It’s not clear where the loading and off-loading points would be, but for “central London to Heathrow” I can only imagine somewhere off Lower Thames Street (EC3) and somewhere around the Brentford/Kew Bridge area at the ‘Heathrow’ end; that’s 10 miles by van or bike or 13 miles by water.

So on the face of it DHL might have hit upon a sound idea, a ‘speedboat’ must be able to travel 13 miles on the open water faster than a van, or even a motorbike, can travel 10 miles on congested London roads, mustn’t it?

Well perhaps, but the Thames above Wandsworth Bridge has a speed limit of 9.2mph and it’s 7 miles from Wandsworth Bridge to Kew Bridge – that’s a minimum of 45 minutes. In addition there are plans to introduce a 13.8mph speed limit for the rest of the journey, so that’s another 26 minutes minimum. So an absolute minimum of 71 minutes for the speedboat to get from central London to Kew Bridge plus the time taken to carry out the 2 transhipments from road to water and back again, while ensuring that relevant Aviation Security rules are adhered to, and however long it takes for the ‘urgent mail’ to be delivered and collected by van(s) or bike(s).

While this might be a bit of good publicity for DHL and the sight of a speedboat in full DHL livery passing the Houses of Parliament will certainly make a good publicity shot, I suspect that it will do nothing to reduce DHL’s delivery times from central London, nor will it do much to reduce congestion on London’s roads or reduce DHL’s carbon footprint.

So did they send a same day courier to hand-deliver it to her on a film set? Did they deliver to her house and she signed for it at the front door in person with her curlers in and wearing a dressing-gown? Is that why the delivery caused “quite a bit of excitement”? No, they took it to the international courier company that carries out their international consignments and it was them that organised the delivery to Hollywood.

I can only imagine that couriers in Scotland must lead very sheltered lives if a delivery addressed to an actress causes them any level of excitement whatsoever – I can’t imagine any other courier company even having the time to notice the name on a parcel as they input it onto their system, particularly as they were just acting as a middleman and not carrying out the delivery themselves.

While I can appreciate that this ‘story’ is just a blown up load of crap issued by Eagle’s PR agency they must surely realise how sad and desperate it makes them sound. Couriers throughout the UK deliver hundreds of items to famous people every day without issuing press releases about it – it’s just part of the job after all.

In an earlier press release Eagle Couriers announced that they had been awarded a contract with the NHS delivering, among other things, confidential medical records and had ‘earned security clearance’ to make deliveries of important Government documents, files and information.

One would hope that a company which is tasked with carrying confidential information would be slightly less excitable about seeing a famous name on a package and less inclined to issue press releases divulging the recipients of their clients’ deliveries.

‘Rants, Replies & Repeating Myself’ is just a collection of the posts that I’ve made on various courier forums over the last few years.

I found that I was answering the same questions and repeating the same information on almost a daily basis as new owner-drivers and courier companies entered the industry and asked questions on various forums. these pages are a searchable collection of my replies, a few of my rants about my personal pet hates and some newer, more detailed information. Please accept it all as just one man’s opinion – I accept no liability for any incorrect information. I’m just the ‘bloke in the pub’ and free advice is worth exactly what you pay for it. I encourage everyone to do their own research.

Alec, Anywhere Sameday Couriers

About The Hauliers Web Ring:

The Hauliers Web Ring is a gathering of websites that have a common purpose…to showcase  Road Haulage, Trucking & Freight businesses.

If you have a website that qualifies and you would like to join the Hauliers Web Ring, continue reading and follow the instructions below.

The Hauliers Web Ring Qualifications:

This Web Ring is open for membership as “free advertising” for all Road Haulage, Trucking, Return Loads agencies, Couriers and other Freight businesses. All you need is a web site related to the Transport industry to join the Hauliers Web Ring

What is a Web Ring?

Web Rings are simply pages on the internet that are linked together by a common basic code inserted on each site’s Home page. If you follow the links long enough, they will form a circle and bring you back to where you started.

This is the basic Hauliers Web Ring code, it is all you need to have on your site to be in the Web Ring. You may customize the appearance to fit your site but it must be visible on the main page and all the links in place.

The tracking cookies that the scans pick up are the ones that track you from one site to another. If one of the advertisers on Site A places a cookie on your system it can recognise you when you visit Site B (if that also contains their ads) and serve up content directly aimed at what they think your interests are, based on the browsing hablts they’ve recorded for you. the privacy ‘worry’ is that someone somewhere might be interested enough in you to be able to build up a full picture of a lot of sites that you’ve been on AND may be able to actually identify you either by your IP address or by you signing up to a site that’s connected with the company that ‘own’ the tracking cookie.

In reality it’s a load of bollocks. Delete them, block them, whatever, it doesn’t really make much difference. There’s the odd site that won’t let you log in if you’ve blocked one of their tracking cookies and the odd site that won’t ‘remember’ you so you have to sign in every time you visit. no big deal either way though really.

Most people should be more worried that their ISP has a log of every website they’ve ever visited and every email ever sent or received.
 

That may make new members feel that the system doesn’t work, or that there aren’t any jobs, but that isn’t the case at all. Every ‘trusted supplier’ that we use today was once a new ‘Network’ member and had to go through the same thing as you’re going through now. I suspect that’s why ‘Network’ has such a long minimum subscription period – to allow you to work out how to use the site to your best advantage without you just giving up after a couple of months.

As for the posting of RJs FROM your area, I personally wouldn’t put an Essex to Scotland job on unless I was going to Scotland. If I’m looking through the Directory for your area I can see your ‘See My Journeys’ button lit up and it looks to me as if you’re loaded to go to Glasgow. So I’m not going to ring you with a Basildon to Plymouth. Posting the local RJ is (I think) fine, but I’d suggest that you set the start and end points to where you are and put something in the notes like ‘Available now and ready to go anywhere’ and make sure you list it as an open-ended RJ.
 

I’ve decided to follow their example, so any of you with the word ‘Anywhere’ on your websites had better remove it straight away.

No mention of B+E in the Regulations so it looks like the Sprinter and trailer boys aren’t covered.

More to the point why is everybody suddenly getting so upset about the percentage of the cost of each litre that goes in tax and duty? The government are actually taking the lowest percentage ‘cut’ in tax per litre that they’ve taken for at least 20 years, maybe even as far back as VAT was introduced.

Much as I dislike this government, it’s not them that are making the profit from the high fuel prices and what extra they do make goes to reduce the tax bill that they’ve lumbered us all with. What’s the problem?
 

mkb**** wrote:
Smaller ones pay on time larger ones seem to need a bit of encouragement

There’s nothing more satisfying than sending a solicitor a claim for late payment charges though.

If anyone thinks it’s worth carrying on with and has any favourite locations for reasonably priced fuel just off a motorway or major trunk route then please send me an email.

I probably should have called it ‘Fuel Near Motorway Junctions That’s Not Quite as Extortianate as at the Motorway Services’ to be more honest.
 

Does the modern satnav enabled courier already have this sort of information available to them or do they rely on knowledge and luck like I used to?

Would it be a worthwhile waste of a few hours of my time?

Can anyone guess the end of the sentence?

IAMAFool wrote:
Just a point when charging interest on late payments……..your not entitled to it if they are a small business.

More bullshit. The law changed in 2002 and it now doesn’t matter what size either party is.

IAMAFool wrote:
Just to do an Alec….Anyone can refuse scotish notes, they are private bank notes and even though it is legal tender you do not have to accept it.

FACT.

Hardly ‘doing an Alec’ since you’re wrong again.

Scottish bank notes aren’t even legal tender in Scotland, never mind England. Only coins are legal tender in Scotland.