Royal Mail has picked up a crucial contract win with the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) worth a whopping £19.5m. The job entails transporting approximately 960k packages of unmarked exam scripts fro 5,500 centres throughout England and then delivered to +- 50,000 examiners. Hopefully they can pass this test without a third strike...

The news couldn't have come at a better time for Royal Mail who are experiencing difficulties with existing clients like Amazon, eBay and the DVLA as a result of the of the impending industrial  action and fears over reliable service delivery -- especially now during the run-up to Christmas.

Teh QCA was looking for five bidders, but Royal Mail was the only one who submitted a propsal...naturally being the only company tendering they sealed teh deal. Good on them!

We'll bring you the full story tomorrow with all the juicy comment from the top execs.

If you have a website and want to include dynamic content from Roadtransport.com, it's easier than ever with our new widget:

The widget will serve up all the latest transport news and vacancies, classified ads, and blog posts and tweets from the Roadtransport.com team. It's entirely free - just go to www.roadtransport.com/widget to find out more.

What a trooper Palletforce CEO Michael Conroy is! Despite clearly being in pain at yesterday's official opening of the pallet network's 380,000 sq ft hub in Burton-on-Trent, Conroy limped through the ceremony on crutches and was on hand to welcome his VIP guest HRH The Princess Royal.

Conroy is suffering from cellulitis - and no that isn't what ladies get on their thighs but a painful swelling of the leg - brought on when blisters on his foot became infected. Why the blisters? Conroy was helping to raise money for mental health charity Mencap with a gruelling week-long, 22 miles a day sponsored walk, but had to be rushed to hospital in Devon part of the way through the challenge. You can still donate at http://www.justgiving.com/Michael-Conroy/

Palletforce moved into its new £30 million hub last Christmas, consolidating four old depots into this state of the art facility. The company says that there are signs that the recession may finally be coming to end, reporting volumes up across all sectors and parts of the UK.

Bet you're dying to know how many football pitches or double decker buses end to end can fit in the hub - the answer is 8 and 1,736 respectively.

Much song and dance has been made about LPG power and its environmental benefits, but is it really a viable alternative to diesel (and to a lesser extent petrol)? Interestingly it's 50% cheaper at the pumps than diesel, which sounds very attractive especially since the 2p fuel-levy increase came into effect recently.

CM decided to settle the argument once and for all by taking three indentical vans powered by three very different fuels (diesel, LPG and petrol) across foggy London town to see for ourselves. The results aren't what you'd expect. Look out for the full report in the 17 September issue of CM.

What are your experiences with LPG? If you've dabbled or currently own a whole fleet-load of LPG vans/CVs I'd love to hear about it.

Yesterday (25 August) saw 28-year old Martin Patrick Fitzpatrick from Newry, Northern Ireland given a three year prison sentence for smuggling £1m worth of cigarettes into the UK.

Below is the lorry load of rotten cabbages in which UK Border Agency seized the following:

• 610,000 Mayfair cigarettes
• 960,000 Palace cigarettes
• 4,200,800 Respect cigarettes
• 638.4kgs of Domingo Azul hand rolling tobacco

Cigarettes were found hidden in a trailer load of rotten lettuces from Spain.

Martin Fitzpatrick pleaded guilty to smuggling.

Continue reading "Yet another HGV driver jailed for smuggling..." »