Two drivers from PostNL won the first international eco-driving challenge to promote safe andeco-friendly driving organised by the International Post Corporation (IPC) and tyre manufacturer
Goodyear in Montpellier, southern France, last week.Five teams from postal operators in Belgium, Denmark/Sweden, France, Ireland and the Netherlandsparticipated in the two-day pilot event being tested on their eco-driving skills, safe driving andcustomer service approach.
The team from PostNL won the IPC Drivers Challenge standing out in all categories of thechallenge, while the teams from PostNord and French La Poste ranked second and thirdrespectively.
While postal operators in the Netherlands, Sweden and Denmark have been organising nationaleco-driving championships for some years now, Belgium and Ireland pioneered their nationaleco-driving events in 2012.
The IPC Drivers Challenge is based on an existing concept from TNT. IPC took over the concept aspart of its mission to encourage sustainable thinking in the international postal sector. “Asenvironmental sustainability within a company significantly depends on the behaviour of itsemployees, it is important for postal operators to stimulate sustainable thinking among their twomillion employees,” IPC explained.
“When TNT approached us about using its international concept to organise a postal sectoreco-driving challenge, we considered the huge potential this concept has to help our members tostimulate more sustainable driving behaviour among their employees,” Herbert-Michael Zapf,President and CEO of IPC said. “The international event could serve as a motivation for more of theparticipants in our sustainability programme to roll out the concept in their own markets.”
Jean-Pierre Jeusette, General Director of the Goodyear Innovation Centre in Luxembourg, added: “The rolling resistance of passenger car tyres contributes up to 20% to a car’s overall fuelconsumption, for a truck it can be even more than 30%. This has a direct impact on the vehicle’sCO2 emission and the fleet’s overall environmental performance. Tyres are also the vehicle’s onlytouch point with the road and can significantly influence its driving performance, in particular inkey safety criteria such as the vehicle’s stopping distance or aquaplaning performance on wetroads.”
The new event, held at the Goodyear Proving Ground near Montpellier, is part of IPC’sEnvironmental Measurement and Monitoring system (EMMS) with 24 participating postal operatorsworldwide working towards the collective target of reducing their carbon emissions by 20% by 2020(baseline year 2008).
