Added flexibility with City trailers
The European company JOST really knows what it’s doing. With 2,800 employees, 1,700 of its own trucks and a trailer fleet made up of over 4,000 units, it is one of Europe’s largest providers of transport and logistics services. In Belgium, the company looks after transport operations for a number of large supermarket chains, including Carrefour. Over the past few years, they have been increasingly replacing the distribution trucks used for these services with CITY trailers from Schmitz Cargobull.
JOST has since become the proud operator of 80 two-axle refrigerated semi-trailers – the Schmitz Cargobull S.KO CITY with an S.CU d80 cooling unit – along with 30 single-axle trailers from the S.BO CITY range with FERROPLAST® box bodies used as dry freighters. Sensors monitor how often and at what time the trailers are opened and the trailers are also equipped with retractable tail lifts, reinforced stainless steel rear frames and roller shutters.
“We have been working these compact semi-trailers since 2019, using them to replace distribution trucks, which have been nothing but beneficial for us,” says Jean-Sebastien Dekens, Operational Retail Manager at JOST. “The semi-trailers are more efficient and last longer, making them more interesting from a financial perspective than trucks with box bodies. What’s more, since we switched, our system has almost completely tailored to swapping out the semi-trailers in the distribution centres. Semi-trailers that come back full of packaging material are parked up and the tractor unit can be recoupled to another loaded semi-trailer for the next deliveries,” says Dekens.
“At the distribution centre, the semi-trailers are manoeuvred using our terminal tractor units. Using semi-trailers also enables our standard tractor units to be used as effectively as possible. We are a multi-functional transport company with containers, tarpaulin trailers, high-volume trailers, sliding floor trailers and even a few tankers and tipper trailers. By linking up all the respective plans, we can use our tractor units wherever there is a need for transport. Obviously, this is not possible with a rigid truck,” adds Dekens.
“We have been working these compact semi-trailers since 2019, using them to replace distribution trucks, which have been nothing but beneficial for us.”
Jean-Sébastien Dekens, Operational Retail Manager at JOST
Sustainability
The flexible use of semi-trailers and tractor units also pays off when it comes to sustainability. According to Dekens, 500 vehicles with LNG drive system also contribute to these efforts. Another major advantage of this concept is that using semi-trailers makes more load capacity available. “Our semi-trailers make an average of two to three stops per route, something that is not possible with a distribution truck due to the lack of space. The semi-trailers are then loaded with packaging material from up to five different supermarkets.”
“The nine-metre S.KO CITY trailers are especially agile, so we can use them to access some narrow spots. For more easily accessible supermarkets, we use the 11-metre S.KO CITY. And for the modern Carrefour stores with lots of space, we use our 13.6-metre standard S.KO COOL semi-trailers. In a nutshell: we always try to use the semi-trailer that offers the highest possible volume to suit the situation,” adds Dekens.
Approval for city centres
“Volume means efficiency, but the truck also has to fit. Belgium has lots of old city centres, where there is barely any space left for deliveries. So, we still need to use distribution trucks for the narrowest of loading points. Our goal is to use as many semi-trailers as possible, but sometimes that’s just not possible,” says Dekens.
Jean-Sebastien Dekens (left) and Guy Beck value the flexibility offered by CITY trailers, which can be used with the wide range of tractor units in the fleet.
Distribution trucks are used for transport jobs in the many Belgium cities with special vehicle regulations. Often, a permit is required to be able to access the city centre and these permits appear on the vehicle’s number plate. “Because we’re always swapping around the tractor units, these permits make things tricky, so we need to factor distribution trucks into our plans in these situations. However, we believe that these permits are an obstacle to development, efficiency and even sustainability,” says Dekens.
In-house workshop created to deal with frequent use
IEvery day, there are a total of 400 trips from the four distribution centres to various branches of Carrefour. “Our drivers have permanent tractor units but no permanent semi-trailers. So, damage is just part and parcel of everyday life, which gave us the idea to set up our own workshop in Antwerp,” explains Guy Beck, transport supervisor at JOST. The list of repair work performed on vehicles and trailers includes maintenance on tail gates and cooling units.
“One of the main advantages of Schmitz Cargobull designs is its modular approach.”
Guy Beck, Transport Supervisor at JOST
“One of the main advantages of Schmitz Cargobull designs is its modular approach. This makes our work easier and means that we can rest assured that we always have the right spare parts available. We use our semi-trailers for 12 to 15 years before they’re replaced – depending on what condition they are in: distribution transport is very heavy going and often leaves one or two marks,” adds Beck.
About JOST
JOST is a road and multimodal transport service provider operating in Europe and the Maghreb region of North Africa. The company specialises in complete loads, collective consignments, liquid and gaseous substances, bulk goods, and temperature-controlled goods. Goods are transported to Tunisia and across Europe, with a particular focus on the Benelux region, France, Germany, Spain, Switzerland, and Italy. JOST offers comprehensive services in a number of sectors, such as e-commerce, express delivery, food deliveries, chemicals, the automotive sector, textiles, raw materials, medical products, construction and timber industry as well as waste disposal.
In addition to its versatile fleet of vehicles, it also has an extended network of branches and warehouses, access points to trains and inland water vessels, and multilingual employees across Europe. An in-house IT team also tailors the logistic solutions to the individual business relationships.
Retail and distribution are also an important area of work: with over 4,500 deliveries per day, JOST is a 24-hour specialist for the Benelux countries. For its work with temperature-sensitive goods, JOST is certified according to ISO 9001.
JOST has locations and warehouses in the Belgian cities of Antwerp, Waarloos, Geel, Oupeye, Herstal, Battice, Grâce-Hollogne, Malmedy, Messancy, Aubange, Athus, Molinfang and Ghlin. There is also a warehouse in Maastricht in the Netherlands and a German site in Eschweiler. The company has a total of 710,000 m2 of storage space spread across these sites. There are also additional sites in nine European companies and Tunisia.