GPI is proud to operate our own fleet of trucks in the UK, allowing us to provide exceptional service for our convenience customers in this market. We have been upgrading the fleet since 2019 with several truck manufacturers supplying us with demonstration units to use over a few months to gain a fair comparison on performance. We decided on vehicles built by Dutch manufacturer DAF to provide our team with improved reliability, safety, fuel efficiency, and lowered emissions.
We operate a fleet of 22 heavy goods vehicles (HGV), and after putting our first eight DAF units on the road in 2019, we reduced our CO2 output by 110,887 kg that year—a 15% reduction from the previous year. This won us the Gold Environmental award that year from Masternaut, our vehicle tracking and telemetry provider. With the recent addition of three new units, we have replaced all but one vehicle (scheduled to be replaced in October), and we expect to see nearly a 30% overall reduction in emissions over the subsequent 18 months operating nearly a full DAF fleet.
Our average fuel mileage is up from 8.65 mpg on the previous trucks to 10.8 mpg (up to 24.8% improvement). Last year the team covered over 2 million miles total with a fuel saving of 11%, and this will now only improve with more trucks having been replaced.
The new DAF vehicles also have a wide range of driver aids and safety features including lane deviation alerts, emergency braking, adaptive cruise control, five-way camera recording system, cyclist warning light, left turn alert to cyclists and pedestrians, and additional brake lights and turn indicators on the sides of the trailer.
These fleet innovations around emissions, safety and fuel efficiency have helped us to reach FORS (Fleet Operators Recognition Scheme) Gold Standard 3 years running and successfully gain acceptance into the UK government DVSA (Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency) Earned Recognition Scheme which puts us amongst the top 80 operators (top 1%) in the UK.