Autamarocchi is an Italian fleet operator established in 1986 and one of
the partners of the CO-GISTICS Trieste pilot site. With 1,890 vehicles, the company’s core business is intermodal container transport and conventional truckload shipping throughout Europe. It has a direct presence in Italy (Trieste, Gorizia, Portogruaro, Venice, Padua, Milan, Genoa, La Spezia, Livorno, Terni, Racconigi, Ravenna, Bologna), in Slovenia (Koper), in Croatia (Rijeka), and Hungary (Budapest) whilst it operates throughout the rest of Europe thought its partners.
Ervino Harej, Deputy Director General of Autamarocchi, highlights the recent developments of his company in the field of eco-driving and the importance of having trained drivers on roads.
Ervino Harej: In the past few years, Autamarocchi has developed a policy which looks more and more at the impact of carbon emissions on the environment. We started this path 6 years ago through internal projects in order to measure first of all the emissions that our company produces and then to evaluate how we can reduce them.
Reducing CO2 is a key point of our environmental strategy that also has an important economic advantage; it means reducing tons of fuel consumed and especially the inefficiencies due to bad driving behaviour or long waiting time at terminals for example.
About eco-driving
Ervino Harej: In order to reach this goal, we need to take into account two aspects. First the vehicle; we don’t produce our vehicles and I have to say that the manufacturing industry is very advanced from this point of view. Today we have very efficient trucks thanks also to the standards that have been developed at the European level; today the emissions that a Euro 6 produces are not comparable to the ones of a Euro 3, only 10 years older. From this point of view, I believe that our truck industry has progressed much further than the car industry.
A second consideration is related to the driving behaviour; we have seen that the difference in consumption for the same vehicle with different driving styles is vast with a variance that can reach up to 15%. This discovery has pushed us to invest in training sessions – both theoretical and practical – for all our drivers. Every Saturday we have interactive sessions in groups of 30-40 people which aim to raise the awareness of our employees ofeconomic driving but also to keep them updated on safety issues and the latest legislations and rules.
These sessions are supported by a more practical training on the road. Each professional driver drives – both in Italy and abroad – for about 150-250 kilometres with an instructor who can clearly understand individual driving style as well as evaluate the efficiency of the vehicle. Based on this evaluation which varies from driver to driver, the instructor can show how the trainee can reduce the inefficiencies practically.
About Autamarocchi involvement in CO-GISTICS
Ervino Harej: We have decided to take part in CO-GISTICS as the project represents a step forward in our overall environmental-friendly strategy and especially because it allows us to see what the developments outside our companies are.
In the project, Autamarocchi will be one of the users of the CO-GISTIC services, looking with a special interest to the speed advice, the CO2 footprint estimation and monitoring, and eco-driving monitoring.
The Autamarocchi system and the CO-GISTICS system will interact in a cooperative way. During the piloting phase the CO-GISTICS system will cooperate with the existing Autamarocchi system, whilst after the pilot testing period, Autamarocchi will integrate the CO-GISTICS services in their own system.
We will evaluate the efforts of Autamarocchi in the project in due course in order to have a relevant fleet for the operations but which will also give us the opportunity to have precise measurement of the results. I believe the total number of trucks to be equipped for CO-GISTICS should be about 40.
