Delivering orders with our Yewdale delivery vans sets us apart from other manufacturers in the industry. Our Elite delivery service is extremely popular with our customers because our drivers handle every order with care and provide a friendly service you don’t get from third-party couriers. We chatted with our Transport Planner to find out what a typical day looks like for an Elite delivery driver.
How many deliveries will a driver make in an average day?
Our drivers make between 5 and 20 deliveries a day, depending on the distance they are covering.
What is the standard shift for a driver?
Their standard hours are 7am until 15:30pm. However, it is very rare they work these hours. The South drivers start roughly between 4am and 6am. The trunker driver starts at 1am and the North drivers start at 6am. After their start time, they work between an 8.5 to 10.5 hours a day.
What is a trunker driver?
The lorry driver who takes the goods up to our North depot, which is located in Castleford, West Yorkshire. The North drivers start and finish their shifts from this depot.
Do the drivers load the vans themselves?
All the vans are loaded by the night shift employees to ensure the Elite drivers can jump straight in their vans and set off when they arrive in the morning. At our North depot, the trunker driver loads the vans ready for the North drivers’ shifts to begin.
Do drivers cover specific parts of the UK?
Our Elite delivery service has wide coverage across England, meaning there are a lot of miles to cover. We have dedicated drivers in the North and South, and we try to vary the routes these drivers go to so they don’t do the same thing every day.
What type of vans do the team drive?
All the Elite delivery vans are Mercedes-Benz Sprinters. We chose Sprinters because they are ergonomic, easy to load with plenty of space, and comfortable to drive. It's easy to spot them on the roads thanks to the attractive Yewdale branding.
What is the average number of miles a driver travels each day?
The mileage can range from 100 to 500 miles depending on their route. If they are travelling a long way, they usually do a small number of deliveries, whereas if they’re going to built-up areas like London, they’ll cover fewer miles and make more deliveries. The average mileage over a week is probably 250 to 300 miles a day.
In 2023, the Yewdale delivery van fleet covered over 798,000 miles in total!
How are delivery routes planned?
Each day, starting at 16:30pm, our Transport Planner maps out delivery routes for the following day using Max Optra, our route planning app. Each driver is assigned a delivery route and a specific number of deliveries. The vans can then be loaded with the correct orders based on this information.
The delivery routes are meticulously planned to save the drivers time and ensure they cover the least miles possible for each delivery. Order volumes, van capacities, delivery time slots and driving conditions are taken into account during route planning.
How is proof of delivery obtained?
Through our route planning app, drivers obtain a signature and take a picture at the point of delivery.
How do the drivers follow their delivery route?
The app generates a manifest that drivers use to follow their route for the day. They then use whatever form of navigation they prefer to get to their destinations.
How do customers benefit from the Elite delivery service?
Our customers benefit from live delivery tracking and real-time updates via SMS or email. They’ll also interact with a friendly driver committed to providing superior customer service. Elite drivers won’t just leave the parcel on the doorstep and walk off as many couriers do. They will often stop and have a chat with the customer before heading off to make the next delivery.
We're also in a better position to accommodate any special requests from customers regarding their deliveries, such as if a product is needed urgently.
What other benefits come from managing our order fulfilment?
All orders are loaded with care, and our drivers ensure that no order gets lost or damaged during transport. Managing our own order fulfilment gives us the confidence to use less packaging than if third-party couriers were delivering the parcels.
Using less packaging helps us to operate more sustainably, and we haven’t stopped there. Our drivers also collect used Yewdale packaging from customers’ sites, as shown in the images below. If it’s in good condition, we reuse the packaging for another order. Any packaging that can’t be reused is recycled, helping us to reduce our carbon footprint.
If you’d like to learn more about our Elite delivery service, please get in touch.
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