Supplied by Mercedes-Benz Commercial Vehicles Aberdeen, the Dumfries-based operator’s new additions are Actros 2545 tractors with BigSpace cabs and are supplied on contract hire through TOM Vehicle Rental.
“We took a pair of new Actros two years ago to try them out,” says Currie’s operations director Allan Jamieson. “We were so pleased with their fuel efficiency and with the feedback from our drivers that we added another couple soon afterwards.
“Those four trucks have each been covering 300,000km a year, and none of them has ever let us down. On the strength of that experience, we had no hesitation in placing our latest order.”
Currie’s latest trucks are fitted with Predictive Powertrain Control (PPC) systems, which use GPS mapping to ‘read’ the road ahead, adjusting cruise control settings and gear ratios, and making full use of the truck’s EcoRoll function, to restrict fuel consumption and CO2 emissions.
“We trialled a PPC-equipped demonstrator and it returned significantly better mpg figures than our standard tractors,” says Jamieson. “In a high-mileage operation such as ours, any improvement in fuel economy represents a valuable saving – we therefore expect the PPC systems on the new vehicles to pay for themselves quickly.”
The vehicles are double shifted, trunking at night to a distribution centre in the North West, returning to Scotland in the daytime with deliveries for supermarkets.