Volvo Trucks South Africa revealed South Africa’s most fuel efficient driver on Friday 24 June 2016 at an event at Maropeng.
The event was the culmination of regional rounds of the competition that saw 10 drivers go head-to-head for the title. This leg of the competition forms part of the global competition which has seen over 10 000 drivers from 40 countries compete for the chance to represent their countries at the grand finale in Gothenburg, Sweden in September, where the world’s most fuel efficient driver will be crowned. “Driving fuel efficiently is not only good for business it’s beneficial for the environment too. Besides testing how fuel efficiently the drivers drive, this competition forms part of Volvo Trucks environmental commitment – ‘every drop counts.’ For an owner or fleet manager 10% of the fuel consumption is controlled by how the driver operates the vehicle. This has a huge impact on the overall total operating costs when 40% of the total operating cost of a fleet is attributed to its fleet,” says Malcolm Gush, sales director, Volvo Trucks South Africa. “Safety is our first priority and we had to ensure that all parameters were adhered to as the event takes place on a public road,” Malcolm adds. The route for the South African leg of the competition took place over 34,8 km/s with drivers being judged on the four following areas: • Time and traffic rules •Engine and gearbox utilisation • Fuel consumption and• Anticipation and braking
The criteria used locally will be used for all the drivers globally with a similar vehicle used in the final event in Sweden. To further ensure that the drivers obey the rules of the road a judge was placed with each driver when he completed the route, this ensured that if any rules of the road were not adhered to, the appropriate penalties could be applied to the final score of the respective driver. To monitor all the other areas for the challenge the dynafleet app was used. This year the South African winner was Dharmendra Arejune from Mersey Trading, followed by Edward Bierman, Franco Bulk Transport and Thokozane Nene from Normandien Farms. The top three received shopping vouchers to the value of R5 000, R3 000 and R2 000 respectively as well as a goodie bag and limited edition Volvo Trucks cap. The final event will take place on the 8th and 9th of September, where one driver will receive the title of the world’s most fuel efficient driver, as well as a once in a lifetime travel experience opportunity courtesy of the Volvo Truck Corporation. Below is a list of all the drivers and companies that participated in the South African final of the Driver’s Fuel Challenge.| Name of company | Driver |
| Mersey Trading | Dharmendra Arejune |
| Normandien Farms | Thokozani Nene |
| Bigfoot Express Freight | Gonaseelan Gengen |
| Xinergistix Management Services | Casper Davids |
| VDM Vervoer | Daniel Visser |
| Andersons Transport | Adriaan du Preez |
| Triton Line Haul | Andrew Steenkamp |
| DHL | David Masimine |
| Franco Bulk Transport | Edward Bierman |
| DHL | Abel Ndala |
