How to waste energy No. 8: road transport

Transport in all its forms provides excellent opportunities to waste energy. Here are a few related to car, van and truck use:

1. Never arrange a telephone call or video conference if you can drive to a meeting instead. Driving long hours shows you are working hard.

2. Never share a car journey.

3. Make sure drivers have not got clear directions to their destinations, so that they get lost.

4. Use oversized goods vehicles whenever possible, and avoid consolidating loads to improve load factor.

5. Do not plan freight movements. For example if back-loads are available, it is better to send out empty vehicles to fetch them.

6. Never optimize multi-drop delivery routes.

7. Never give drivers training. Encourage them to accelerate hard, drive too fast in too low a gear, brake harshly, and idle their engines for long periods.

8. Fit the wrong kinds of tyres and run them at the wrong pressures.

9. Neglect maintenance of tracking and brakes: as well as wasting fuel you can spend extra on tyres and brake parts.

10. Do not monitor mileages, loadings or fuel purchases.