News

Wrexham County Borough Council has saved £80,000 on buying two vehicles by adopting a demountable body system on a single truck.

The demountable system, built by Whale Tankers and Econ Engineering, means the council can switch between a 10,500-litre vacuum/jet tanker and a gritter, and can be pulled by a 4x4 18-tonne Mercedes-Benz Axor 1824 chassis, when it might have had to order two  vehicles with fixed bodies.

Using the demoutable system allows Dave Roberts, the council's transport manager, to run only one prime mover for two bodies. "It saves £80,000 that would have been needed for a second vehicle. We decided on the swap-body system as it will provide us with greater flexibility, whilst the speed with which bodies can be changed over is an added bonus.

"Whale and Econ have come together to deliver what is an innovative demount system that has obvious benefits to local authority operators," he says.

The council has repeated the process with an existing 26-tonne Atego by investing in a demountable gully emptier and gritter combination body, and modifying its original body into the same combination with new demount hydraulics. It means a quick change can get the vehicle back out on the road again, Roberts adds.