Western Australia has very different truck leasing and rental requirements to the Eastern States. Tim Giles talks to the TR Group in WA about the differences in an atypical truck rental environment.
Overall the Western Australian economy fluctuates regularly, as it is synchronised with the on/off nature of the mining industry. In good times there is a massive demand for equipment like trucks and trailers, but when the tide turns, the picture is the complete opposite.
In Perth, PowerTorque spoke to Andrew McAdam who is the Perth Branch Manager for the TR Group, who specialise in all forms of truck and trailer rental and leasing.
“The environment that we’re working in is very different from New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland,” says Andrew. “In the Eastern States there’s a lot of work centred around just basic road transport, where you might be running around in metropolitan areas, around the port, etc. We do have that here, but a huge part of the people that we’re dealing with are running up into the Pilbara, into the Wheatbelt, or into the Goldfields.
“We’re talking about covering 1,000-plus km a day. We’re also servicing the mining sector, the contractors, operations actually working on site. So we’ve got a big fleet of side tipper trailers and the contractors are actually physically using those on site for civil works, for mining works on the sites.
“Others are using them in road building, profiling, those types of projects as well. There’s no side tipper work anywhere else in, in Australia, for TR Group. There’s a possibility it may develop for us in Queensland. There’s projects up there that might need it, but nothing anywhere else.
“With some assets, we will control the servicing ourselves. particularly things like prime movers we will work with OEM’s branches, Volvo or CJD in Perth, and get those guys to manage the servicing. Depending on where things are located, we may also allow the client to do servicing, obviously reported, managed and reported back to us.”
The business in those remote areas is more typically involving trailers. If the location is super remote, the clients do the servicing, the maintenance, and it’s all part of the the agreed contract terms.
East vs West
“That is completely different to anything, anywhere in the Eastern States, for TR Group,” says Andrew. “Actually, I have to admit, I quite liked the TR Group model of of managing the service internally, because it just allows you to have a bit more control over what’s done, how it’s done and where it’s done.
“I think, where we can do it, it’s actually adding value for our clients as well. We’re not just saying, here’s the gear, away you go, you get on with it.
“I had a conversation with a client who is having some issues with their prime mover fleet, and they run general transport, line haul all over the state. They were saying the hire gear is expensive and it does cost them a lot to run. What we’re trying to do is actually take away the pain.
“This particular company has had prime movers off the road for months. They can’t get parts, they can’t get stuff fixed, they’re down gear and they’re being forced to rent equipment. Whereas what we’re saying is, if we if we come up with a rental solution for you, that’s our problem. It becomes our pain. We’ll deal with it and you focus on what you need to do. If it means we’ve got to go and give you another prime mover or we’ve got to bring a prime mover over from the east or whatever, we’ll do that so that you get the right service.”
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