Welch’s Transport in Cambridge is celebrating after winning three awards in one weekend for raising standards and innovating.

The haulier, which begins its 90th anniversary next year, said it had spent 2023 embracing cutting-edge technology after investing in one of the country’s first 19-tonne battery electric HGVs.

It also installed the UK’s first publicly accessible HGV ‘supercharger’, which it shares with fellow operators, and it established an urban consolidation centre (UCC) at its haulage site.

This UCC limits the need for so many lorries entering Cambridge and enables items to be sorted so that electric vehicles can make the final deliveries.

Welch’s Transport said it had also harnessed artificial intelligence to optimise vehicle routes across the UK and this had resulted in a 15% reduction in fleet mileage.

The company expanded its ‘solar estate’ during the year and added that it was now exploring wind generation and batteries to maximise reliance on clean energy.

As a result, the haulier won ‘private sector commercial fleet of the year’ at the Greenfleet awards; ‘service market dealer of the year’ at Renault Trucks’ UK dealer network awards and operational support manager Jamie Sands won the ‘rising star of the year’ at the Logistics UK awards.

Director Chris Welch, who was also highly commended at the Greenfleet awards, said: “It would be easy to sit back and celebrate next year’s 90th anniversary with a degree of self-satisfaction. But the industry we’re in has its work cut out cleaning up its act.

“I am determined that Welch’s Transport lead the way by making our little bit of the world as good as it can be.

“I couldn’t be happier that the awards the team have won this year recognise the importance of our efforts and will show other businesses the value of using innovation to make progress that will ultimately benefit everyone.”

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