Explore Transport (Explore) is one of the fastest-growing specialist haulage and plant hire businesses in the UK.
Founded in 2015 by Managing Director David Cox, the business has expanded to encompass seven depots nationwide, to service the construction, rail, and aerospace industries.
Safety and sustainability at the core of Explore’s fleet operations
Throughout their transport operation, Explore places a strong emphasis on safety and sustainability, underpinned by technology.
As well as operating a fleet of Euro 6-compliant trucks, Explore uses their own in-house-developed transport planning and routing software to ‘achieve maximum efficiency across their transport network’.
Explore even challenges their depot network and sales teams to target ‘the lowest empty mileage of any operator’ in their sector.
Explore has a commitment to being the leading authority in haulage and workplace safety. It underpins their ethos that safety is an ethical responsibility right across the business.
That ethos and commitment is evidenced by their dedication to rigorous driving programmes and specialist training for drivers operating in urban areas.
Explore has also pioneered the development of a team of specialist London drivers who focus on making last-mile deliveries in central London.
To develop these London specialists, Explore has had to expand its depot network by establishing its first London Consolidation Centre in Dagenham. This centre aims to ‘detach the long-haul leg from the last mile of the delivery’.
Critical routing, compliance, and hgv-specific challenges
To effectively manage a large heavy haulage commercial fleet, Explore recognised the need for a solution that not only prioritised safety, but also addressed the complexities of access and routing restrictions dictated in many of their contracts.
The introduction of Stream’s Turn GPS solution was essential for enhancing route navigation and compliance for their heavy goods vehicles (HGVs).
Before implementing Turn GPS across their haulage fleet, Explore faced critical route management challenges that threatened their ability to maintain important contracts.
Previous HGV navigation system causing critical routing issues
Explore had been using an alternative truck navigation system, which significantly restricted their routing options and presented them with usability and contract compliance issues.
With their previous HGV navigation system, the route boundaries Explore created were constantly resetting, causing drivers to enter prohibited areas.
A lack of control over route customisation also meant Explore was unable to meet customer-specific requirements.
Yvette Harris, Driver Support Manager at Explore explains:
“Due to the type of contracts Explore has, we have to ensure drivers follow specific routes. For instance, they might not be able to pass through a certain village when travelling to a construction site. Even though that might not be the most direct route”.
In order to maintain Explore’s very high safety and compliance standards, the transport team has to create carefully crafted, bespoke routes.
“However, those routes and boundaries were resetting, so drivers were going into areas they shouldn’t be going into. This was a critical issue for us, as it meant we could have been removed from a certain project or contract if we didn’t get it right.”
Turn GPS offered a robust solution for this core limitation by providing Explore’s transport team with the tools to create, manage and customise routes themselves, without the constraints of manual, drag-and-drop route planning.
Dealing with heavy and abnormal loads
Regulations governing the movement of abnormal loads are stringent and complex.
Standard consumer-grade navigation systems, such as Google Maps and Apple Maps, do not currently cater for the needs of trucks, HGVs and other heavy vehicles and the critical road network restrictions they face.
They required mandatory data input for every journey involving an abnormal load, so that navigation is safe and compliant in accordance with vehicle dimensions and load types.
“Turn GPS is a game-changer for the industry. If you put a location into Google Maps, it will bring up three different ways in which you can go. Turn will do that as well, but we can now build the precise route within the software. We know then, that is the precise route the driver will take as well. And that is critical”.
Driver feedback has been overwhelmingly positive says Yvette:
“I receive all the feedback from the drivers. They think that the look and the feel of Turn is great. They like the way the maps are set out and how it provides the turn-by-turn navigation instructions.”
Integrating with what3words for industry-leading location precision
While Turn GPS provided Explore with the majority of their routing and navigation needs, Explore wanted greater location granularity.
Explore wanted the ability to pinpoint exact delivery points in dense urban environments, large industrial estates, or rural areas with limited street addressing.
Traditional address inputs and coordinates frequently placed the delivery pin close to, but not exactly, at the intended drop-off location.
This often resulted in wasted driver time, increased fuel consumption, and a great deal of frustration across the board.
Explore sought a way for precise address inputs to enhance Turn’s routing accuracy, maximise fleet efficiency, and minimise empty miles.
They found that precision by integrating Turn GPS with what3words.
what3words’ addressing system was integrated into Explore’s address input and dispatch platforms. This allowed customers or dispatchers to specify a location using a simple, three-word code that corresponds to a 3m x 3m square anywhere on earth.
This quickly made address details more accurate, helping dispatchers and drivers find the exact loading dock or drop-off spot.
At the same time, this removed the confusion that often comes with street addresses and supported Explore’s goal of having the least empty mileage of any company in their sector.
Looking forward
As testament to the fantastic working relationship between Stream and Explore, both parties are proactively collaborating on the next phase of Turn GPS development, with a clear focus on automating movement order processing.
This upcoming phase is designed to address the significant challenge of managing thousands of ad hoc movement orders that Explore handles daily.
The goal is to develop capabilities that allow for the automatic import of these orders, complete with predetermined routes, directly into Turn GPS.
This functionality will be crucial for ensuring enhanced route compliance, as it will prevent drivers from deviating from the specified path.
Yvette explains:
“We’re working with the Stream team now to look at the next phase of development for Turn: how to route the thousands of ad hoc movement orders we process.
We’re looking at ways to enable Turn to import all the movement orders and the route that needs to be taken. We can then ensure that drivers are not going to go off route on a movement order, because they’re following the route that’s been set up in Turn. For the way the industry is going with permits and movement orders, that’s going to be brilliant.”