https://www.trucknews.com/features/bypass-heart-west/
Bypass at the heart of the West
February 3, 2018
Ackerman, too, identifies the bypass as a vital link between Regina and other Western Canada urban centers. The way he sees it, Regina could well become the new trucking hub of the Prairies.
“If you leave Calgary and you want to be in Winnipeg tomorrow morning, you’ll need a team outfit, whereas from Regina you can be in Winnipeg or Calgary overnight, single driver,” said Ackerman. “Once this bypass is open, all those major cities in Western Canada are accessible overnight.”
With ELDs coming soon and every minute saved per trip representing profit for a trucking company, such a centralized location could tip in the scale, especially if paying only one driver instead of a team.
The bypass will also allow drivers going in or through Regina to do so with greater peace of mind.
“It’s more stressful to drive in congested traffic than on the open highway. Your drivers are working harder mentally,” said Ackerman, underlining that some of his drivers currently lose about 30 minutes per trip at a rate of three or four trips a day on Highway 33 leaving Regina.
This traffic stress burden being taken off the drivers’ shoulders could even help retention and reduce turnover, according to Ackerman.
“Our focus on retaining employees is always about making them the most productive they can be, because trucking as an industry has a long history of paid by productivity,” he said. “This bypass is going to have a significant impact on the uncontrollable of traffic because it’s going to make the flow much simpler for our guys. Unless we are delivering in the city, it is going to eliminate our trucks’ need to go into the city to get to their destination.”
Richards can relate to that city avoidance.
“When I ran a trucking company in this province, I didn’t even allow truckers to fuel in Regina because you lost them for too long a period of time,” Richards said.
“By the time they came into town, went to the cardlock and exit back out, you lost a couple of hours. So they had to bypass Regina for fuel.”
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