Rangeview Transport: Growing more than plants

Matt's plant transport business has a 25 year history but is very much moving with the times, with a sharp eye on costs and asset utilisation.

Thanks to a reliable fleet of Scania trucks, Rangeview Transport is expanding into Far North Queensland and out west to WA, as it collects a growing number of general freight customers to ensure every trailer is fully loaded.

“We run our trucks on a schedule like an airline,” says Matt Borkowski. “Traditionally we focussed on transporting plants, but now if we see there’s spare capacity in the trailers, we have been using online freight booking service providers to connect us with people who need general - and increasingly refrigerated - freight moved.

“Our trucks must leave on time, so it is up to us to make sure the trailers are full. One of our advantages is that all our trailers have a tail lift, and half the fleet are rigids which can pull pig trailers. This gives us a lot of loading and unloading flexibility.

“When the trucks arrive at our capital city depots, they can drop the pig and then continue to a customer’s premises, even if it is a built-up area,” he says. “The pig trailers are pulled by 8x4s which ensures better weight distribution and also traction, useful for traversing gullies at customer premises,” he says.

“Essentially, we can deliver anywhere, and that is appealing to our general freight customers, a side of the business that is growing nicely.

“Lately we have been achieving around 90 per cent capacity on the trailers, and we are more and more efficient which makes our operation more profitable, gaining greater utilisation from our assets. Last week we had 110 per cent of capacity booked on the run to Newcastle, so I had to call one of our customers and ask if we could send their load the following day,” Matt says.

Since COVID, Rangeview has added another 10 trucks to the fleet which now stands at 27 vehicles, of which 20 are Scania, split evenly between prime movers and rigids. Further new Scania trucks are on order.

“We have one of almost everything in the Scania fleet,” Matt says.

“We have 4x2, 6x2, 6x4 and 8x4 configurations, most of which are six cylinder-powered with a few older V8s. There’s a new R 660 V8 on order which will be hooked up to a road train combination, as well as a new 560 G rigid SUPER as well.

“The road-train will be working out of Brisbane heading north, and we’ll use that configuration out of Melbourne to Perth once we set up our new depot there, sending plants to WA from Victoria and bringing other plant products back east, along with general freight.

“All the Scania trucks are on Repair and Maintenance contracts, which gives us full predictability and visibility of costs. I know exactly how much the fleet costs to keep on the road each month, and if there’s a breakdown, I know Scania will get the vehicle fixed promptly to avoid paying me $500 per day while they are off road. We had a clutch issue recently on two trucks, one in Townsville and one in Brisbane, and the Brisbane truck was repaired overnight, so there was very minimal downtime, which is a real help” he says.

“We aim to keep our trucks for five years, and in that time the prime movers will cover more than one million km, and the rigids around 600,000 km. Soon we’ll be replacing our 2019 R 520 V8 8x4 rigid with a new 560 G 8x4, but at this rate we’ll probably need another one on top,” Matt says.

“Over the past three years our business has expanded quite significantly. We added a new depot in Townsville and expanded our facility in Brisbane, and we’ve started transporting refrigerated produce, for example cut flowers from Melbourne to Adelaide.

"We’re loading product in trolleys that take up less space than pallets and require less packaging, so the customer saves costs there. With demand for cooled trailers to Brisbane increasing we’re now sending refrigerated trucks to Queensland at 14-degrees. I believe we’re the only plant carrier in Australia offering refrigerated services,” he said.

“The expansion of the business means our headcount is now over 50 staff, with a manager in each depot and a new General Manager just recruited. Stuart Brown is a highly experienced and knowledgeable GM who has joined us from one of the biggest fleets in the country.

"With the additional vehicles, the strength of the Scania product and the benefits of Scania’s excellent aftersales service, the R&M contracts really do take a weight off my mind," Matt said.