Oxford City Council Updates Maintenance Fleet With New Screed Vehicle From Somerford Equipment
Oxford City Council is updating its highways maintenance fleet after awarding Somerford Equipment a contract to supply a new screed vehicle. The new vehicle was ordered as part of a rolling replacement programme to update assets that have reached the end of their operational life and are no longer cost effective to keep on the road. It will enhance the council’s ability to provide a rapid and efficient response to all highway lining requirements within the Oxford ring road area.
According to Owain Pearce, Fleet Technical Officer at Oxford City Council: “We selected Somerford Equipment after researching all possible suppliers to ensure we achieved best value and worked closely in partnership with the company to design a bespoke solution that met our specific requirements. From start to finish, Somerford Equipment demonstrated that it fully understood the needs of the highway maintenance industry and how to design a vehicle that would increase operational efficiency.”
The new screed vehicle will allow Oxford City Council to comply with the latest safety and workflow practices to protect drivers, operatives and the general public using Oxford’s busy streets. It features a single point safe-fill system to ensure the highest levels of safety are maintained when topping up the onboard gas storage facility. Also included are fully electronic, rear-mounted LED traffic control lights to ensure workforce safety around the clock, a significant upgrade from the previous vehicle that just had a warning sign at the back.
Somerford Equipment ensured that the maintenance vehicle is fully self-sufficient by including an onboard independent compressor with 110V generator. This will eliminate the need for Oxford City Council to use a separate trailer to carry additional equipment such as this and provide a higher level of service by enabling maintenance teams to respond faster to requests for lining work to be completed.
“This new vehicle from Somerford Equipment will increase the productivity of our highways teams whilst reducing downtime and maintenance costs,” continued Owain Pearce. “It will enable us to complete jobs faster to keep traffic flowing across the city and ensure that the highways infrastructure is efficiently maintained on a timely basis.”