On 23 September the RAC reported the UK average price of diesel at 197.31p a litre. That is 1.78p below the all-time record set in June 2022, and almost 55p a litre more than at the end of February. The RAC does not expect it to fall back soon.

For a courier company, diesel is not a side cost. It is one of the largest costs in every job we run, and neither we nor our customers can control its price. What we can control is how much of it we use.

## How our vans are driven

The biggest saving comes from the driver’s seat. Our tracking system shows harsh acceleration, harsh braking, speed and idling alongside fuel use. We use that data to coach drivers, not to catch them out. Smooth driving uses less fuel, is safer and causes less wear on the vehicle. Our FORS practitioner for fuel efficiency and low emissions, Catherine Forward, is responsible for this work.

## Keeping the vehicles efficient

A van that is poorly maintained uses more fuel. Our FORS Silver accreditation requires us to record fuel use, set targets and keep improving. Tyre pressures, servicing and the checks in our seasonal changeovers all affect how much diesel each mile needs.

## Planning the miles

Our work ranges from long motorway runs to deliveries across London, and each needs a different plan.

## Looking further ahead

We are trialling a fully electric Renault Master. Most of our work is still too far for it. But on the jobs it can do, its running costs are not tied to the price of diesel. We will share what we have learned so far in Part 2 of our trial diary.

## Why a fuel surcharge is sometimes needed

We absorb as much of the increase as we can, and the steps above help. But when the price of diesel rises by more than a third in seven months, efficiency alone cannot cover it. That is when a fuel surcharge has to be part of our pricing.

## What helps keep your costs down

• Booking ahead gives us more options when planning a route.
• Accurate load details mean we can send the right vehicle for the job.
• Flexible delivery windows help us avoid the most congested times.

In 30 years we have seen fuel prices rise sharply before, most recently in 2022. Our approach has not changed: use less fuel, be open about costs, and talk to customers early. If you would like to discuss how fuel costs affect your deliveries, please get in touch.

The weather has finally turned, and for most people the summer is simply over. For a courier fleet it is not that simple. A long, hot summer leaves its mark on a vehicle, and the damage tends to reveal itself in the first cold, wet weeks of autumn.

Heat is hard on batteries. Sustained high temperatures accelerate internal wear, but a weakened battery will usually keep starting a warm engine without complaint. The first cold morning is when it fails, and it fails in a customer’s yard with a load already on board.

Heat is hard on rubber, too. Wiper blades bake and harden through the summer, then get their first real test in an October downpour. Tyre pressures fall as the temperature drops, so a pressure that was correct in July is low by now. On our refrigerated vehicles, the door seals matter more than anything. Those seals hold the cold in, and UV and heat are exactly what degrades them.

So our autumn changeover is a proper piece of work, not a quick glance around the vehicle. Batteries are load tested rather than eyeballed. Tyres are checked for tread, pressure and any heat-related cracking in the sidewalls. Lights are inspected across the whole fleet, because we are about to use them for most of the working day. Wipers are replaced as a matter of course. Fridge units, which have just come off their hardest three months of the year, are checked and recalibrated, and every door seal is inspected.

This is where our FORS Silver accreditation earns its keep. FORS requires documented maintenance, planned inspection schedules and evidence that the work is actually done, not just intended. It means a seasonal changeover like this is a defined process with a record behind it, rather than something we get to when the workshop is quiet.

The drivers matter just as much as the vehicles. Autumn changes the job. Low sun at commuter hours is blinding, particularly through a windscreen that has a summer’s worth of dust and dead flies on it. Wet leaves reduce grip. The first heavy rain after a dry spell lifts months of oil and rubber off the road surface and makes it genuinely slippery. Our drivers cover a mix of long motorway runs and dense London work, and each of those presents a different version of the problem.

We monitor driving behaviour through our tracking system all year round, and autumn is when we pay closest attention to it. Harsh braking and late braking are the things to watch as conditions worsen, and the data lets us have a specific conversation with a driver rather than a general one.

None of this is glamorous. It is the reason your consignment arrives on time in November, and it is the difference between a fleet that is maintained and a fleet that is repaired.

There’s a version of courier work that looks fast: hard acceleration away from every junction, late braking, engine running while the paperwork gets signed. It feels urgent. It is almost never quicker, and it costs everyone involved — the vehicle, the driver, the customer and the road.

Driving behaviour is one of the few areas in logistics where doing the right thing lines up exactly with doing the cheap thing. Smooth driving is safer, it’s greener, it wears the vehicle out more slowly, and it uses less fuel. There’s no trade-off to manage. So we treat it as part of how we operate rather than as an initiative that comes round once a year.

Two very different jobs, in the same week

Most of what we carry is a single consignment or a handful of drops — typically between one and seven. What varies enormously is the road.

One day it’s a long motorway run north, where the whole game is steady speed, anticipation and not burning fuel fighting the gradient. The next it’s central London, where it’s stop-start, tight, full of cyclists and pedestrians, and where the skill is patience and observation rather than progress.

Those two environments reward almost opposite instincts. A driver who’s spent three hours on the M20 has to change gear mentally as well as physically when they hit the North Circular. That switch is where risk lives, and it’s a big part of what our training and monitoring is actually for.

What changes when driving improves

The fuel is the obvious one. Industry research generally puts long-term savings from eco-driving training at around 6%, while aggressive driving can raise consumption by 15–30% at higher speeds. In a fleet our size, the gap between our smoothest and harshest driver on comparable work is real money.

But fuel is only part of it:

• Wear and tear. Brakes, tyres, clutches and suspension are consumed by harshness, not by mileage alone. A vehicle driven smoothly spends more days on the road and fewer in the workshop, which means fewer disrupted collections.
• Safety. The behaviours that burn fuel — late braking, excess speed, poor anticipation — are the same behaviours that cause collisions. Every improvement in one is an improvement in the other.
• Reliability. Fewer breakdowns and fewer incidents means fewer failed deliveries. For a customer with a time-critical consignment, that’s the number that matters.
• Emissions. Less fuel burned is less carbon, and less local air pollution in the places we deliver into — which matters most precisely where we do our densest work.
• How we’re seen. A van with our name on it is a rolling statement about how we run. Courteous driving is marketing that costs nothing.
• Cost. Fuel and maintenance are two of the largest controllable costs in a courier business. Keeping them down is how we keep our pricing sensible, and that benefit lands with our customers rather than staying with us.

How we manage it

FORS Silver sets the framework. Our Silver accreditation isn’t a badge we hang on the wall. It requires us to collect and use data on fuel, emissions and collisions, to carry out driver risk assessments, to investigate incidents properly, and to set targets for reducing road risk and environmental impact. The standard obliges us to measure this and to keep getting better at it, which is exactly why we value holding it.

Someone owns it. Catherine Forward has been our FORS practitioner for fuel efficiency and low emissions since 2021, and holds the FP07 qualification the role requires. That matters more than it might sound. Fuel efficiency is the sort of thing that quietly becomes nobody’s job in a busy transport office. Here it has a name against it, and has done for five years.

Training, then training again. Drivers arrive with a licence and years of experience. What training adds is the specific stuff: reading the road far enough ahead that braking becomes rare, using the vehicle’s momentum, understanding what idling actually costs, and driving safely around vulnerable road users in dense urban traffic. We’d rather run short, frequent refreshers on one topic at a time than one long day a year that has faded by March.

Tracking that coaches rather than catches. Our vehicle tracking shows harsh braking, harsh acceleration, speed and idling alongside fuel use. Used badly, that’s surveillance. Used properly, it’s a conversation: here’s how this month compared with last, here’s the one habit worth working on, here’s what changed when you did.

Two rules make the difference. First, we compare like with like. A day in London will always generate more braking events than a run to Manchester, so the numbers have to be read against the work rather than in isolation — otherwise the driver doing the hardest job looks like the worst driver. Second, we pay as much attention to improvement as to who’s top of the list, because in any fleet the biggest gains come from the middle rather than the front.

And it cuts both ways. When something happens that wasn’t our driver’s fault, the data and the footage are what prove it.

Where we’re going next

• Tightening our idling targets, with a sensible exception for refrigerated work where holding temperature is the job
• Extending incident investigation to near misses and not only collisions, because the near miss is the free lesson
• Building driver performance into how we plan work, so that the right vehicle and the right route reduce the time pressure that causes rushed driving in the first place
• Feeding all of it into our electric van trial. Driving style affects an electric vehicle’s range even more than it affects a diesel’s fuel consumption, so the habits we build now are what will make electric viable for us later

The point of all this

None of this is dramatic. There is no single initiative that transforms a fleet’s driving. It’s a standard to work to, a named person responsible, training that keeps happening, data that somebody actually looks at, and conversations with drivers who are treated as professionals rather than as a problem to be monitored.

The result is vehicles that last longer, deliveries that arrive when we said they would, less fuel burned, and costs we can keep a lid on for the people who book us.

01227 773030 | control@invictacouriers.com

Most of Our Work Is Too Far for an Electric Van. We’ve Taken One Anyway.

This week a fully electric Renault Master joined us on trial. We should say the awkward part first: the majority of the work we do exceeds what this vehicle can cover on a single charge. We knew that before it arrived. We took it anyway.

That isn’t a contradiction. It’s the point.

What we’re actually trying to find out:

The question isn’t “can an electric van do everything we do?” We already know the answer to that. The question is which slice of our work it can do better than a diesel — and whether that slice is big enough to build on.

So over the coming weeks we’re measuring the things that decide it:

• What kind of work suits it, and what job distances are realistic once you account for a real load, real traffic and a real driving day
• Where the rapid chargers on our primary routes actually are, whether a van this size physically fits the bay, and whether they’re working when we get there, and whether there are queues to deal with?
• How much energy we use per mile, and how that changes as the load gets heavier
• What the day feels like from the driver’s seat, which is a different question from what the numbers say

Charging has to fit the driver, not the other way round.

The temptation with an electric van is to plan the route and then find somewhere to charge. That’s backwards, and it costs you the day.

We’re doing it the other way: identifying the high-speed chargers on our main corridors, setting drivers up with accounts on all of them before they need them, and then building routes so the charge stop lands where the driver’s break was going to be anyway. Done properly, the charging time costs nothing — the van fills up while the driver eats. Done badly, you’ve added forty minutes to a job for no reason.

Customer ETAs will be different, and we’d rather absorb that cost than pass it on. An honest ETA on an electric job has to include charge dwell time. That arithmetic is new to us, and getting it wrong means telling a customer 2pm and arriving at 2:40. So we’re working that out on jobs where we control the risk, and every trial job has a conventional vehicle as a fallback. No customer’s delivery is an experiment.

Where this is really heading Two things this trial is quietly building towards. The first is heavier vehicles. Our trial van is a standard 3.5 tonne. Realistically, our future is in the 4 tonne class, where a category B licence now covers zero-emission vehicles up to 4.25 tonnes and the old restrictions on distance from base have been lifted. We can’t gather 4 tonne data from a 3.5 tonne van — but if we log energy use against payload carefully enough, we can build a defensible model of what a heavier vehicle would do, and then test that prediction when we get one. We’d rather forecast from our own numbers than from a brochure.

The second is temperature control, which is a significant part of what we do. We have deliberately not started with a refrigerated electric van. The hard parts of running an EV in this business aren’t the fridge — they’re the charging, the routing, the ETAs and the driver habits. We’re solving those on a simpler vehicle first, so that when we do put a temperature-critical load into an electric van, none of it is new.

We’ll publish what goes wrong too. Some of this trial will not work. A charger will be broken or blocked. A route will turn out to be twenty miles too long. A driver will finish a day less confident than they started it. Those are the useful results, and we’ll write them up as honestly as the good ones.

Thirty years of moving freight out of Kent has taught us that the operators worth trusting are the ones who tell you what didn’t work. We’ll report back. 01227 773 030

It’s Not the Fridge That Keeps Your Load Cold

On a warm August afternoon, the inside of a parked, unrefrigerated van can climb well past 45°C. That’s not a delivery vehicle any more — it’s an oven. For anyone moving food samples, pharmaceuticals, laboratory specimens or fresh produce, summer is when transport stops being a logistics line item and starts being a quality control problem.

The obvious answer is a refrigerated van. But a fridge unit on its own doesn’t keep a load at temperature — it just gives you the means to. What actually protects the consignment is everything built around it.

Here’s what that looks like at Invicta.

1. We pre-chill the van before the job, not during it

A fridge unit switched on at loading is a fridge unit fighting a losing battle. It has to pull down the temperature of the air, the walls, the floor and the load all at once — and the load is the last thing to catch up.

So we bring vehicles down to temperature before they’re loaded. By the time the first item goes in, the load space is already where it needs to be, and the unit’s only job for the rest of the day is to hold it there.

2. Curtains, so the cold doesn’t fall out of the door

Every door opening is a temperature loss. Cold air is heavy — open a rear door and it pours out at floor level while warm air rolls in above it. On a multi-drop run, those losses stack up.

Our refrigerated vehicles are fitted with curtains across the load space. The driver reaches through, the barrier stays largely intact, and the bulk of the cold air stays where it belongs.

3. Drivers trained to treat the door as the weak point

Kit only works if it’s used properly. Our drivers are trained to plan the load so that the next drop is the nearest to the door, to open for as short a time as possible, and to open as few times as possible. It sounds small. Over a full day of deliveries in 30°C heat, it’s the difference between a stable load and a drifting one.

4. Serviced and calibrated — with a hard push before summer

A fridge unit that says -18°C and is actually running at -14°C is worse than useless, because it’s telling you everything is fine. Our fridge systems are serviced and calibrated on a regular schedule, and we deliberately front-load that work ahead of the summer, so the units go into the hottest months of the year at their best rather than being fixed halfway through it.

5. Seals and weak spots, checked

Door seals perish. Gaps open up. It’s the least glamorous item on the list and one of the most important, so seals are inspected as a matter of routine, along with anywhere else in the body where temperature can quietly leak away.

6. Someone is watching it, in real time, from the office

Every item above is prevention. This is the one that catches what prevention misses.

We monitor load temperatures from our control office while the job is running. If a reading starts to drift — a unit working harder than it should, an unexpected delay in the heat, a run of door openings on a difficult multi-drop — the controller sees it while it’s still a trend rather than a failure. They can then get on the phone to the driver, reroute, adjust, or intervene before the consignment is anywhere near out of spec.

The point isn’t the technology. It’s that a problem gets solved at 11:40 with a phone call, instead of getting discovered at 3pm when the doors open at the delivery point. By then, the only thing left to do is write it up.

What the vehicles will do

Our fridge units run from -21°C up to +25°C, covering frozen, chilled and controlled-ambient work in a single vehicle. Where a customer needs two temperatures on one run, we can fit a divider and split the load space — frozen at one end, chilled at the other, one journey and one set of costs.

Thirty years of temperature-critical work

Invicta Couriers has supported food manufacturers, laboratories and pharmaceutical clients across Kent and the UK since 1996. In practice that means running time- and temperature-critical samples to Manchester, Scotland and London hundreds of times a year, frequently at short notice and often outside normal hours. Our drivers are FORS Silver accredited, so the same standards apply whether the delivery is a laboratory in Watford or a controlled site in central London.

Tell us the number

The single most useful thing you can do when booking is give us the temperature range rather than the word. “Keep it cool” means different things to different people. Give us the figure and we’ll match the vehicle, pre-chill it, plan the route around it — and watch it the whole way.

Call Whitstable on 01227 773 030 or Ashford on 01233 611 911, or email control@invictacouriers.com.

We are delighted to congratulate Callum, who has recently completed his Level 3 Diploma in Light Vehicle Maintenance at Canterbury College and joined Invicta Couriers as a full-time, qualified mechanic.

Callum first came to us on work experience, where he gained practical experience alongside our workshop team and developed his skills working on a busy and varied commercial fleet. After successfully completing his qualification, he joined us full time last month and is now helping to maintain and repair our fleet of more than 50 vehicles.

Operating our own workshop is an important part of the service we provide. By carrying out much of our vehicle servicing, maintenance and repair work in-house, we can keep a close eye on the condition of our fleet and respond quickly when work is required.

Our vehicles cover thousands of miles while carrying out deliveries throughout Kent, London and across the UK, so reliable maintenance is essential. From smaller vans to larger specialist vehicles, every part of the fleet must be kept safe, dependable and ready for work.

Callum’s journey from work experience student to qualified mechanic also reflects our commitment to investing in young people and developing the skills our business will need in the future.

Congratulations, Callum, on completing your qualification and becoming a valued full-time member of the Invicta Couriers team. We look forward to seeing you continue to develop your skills and play an important role in keeping our fleet moving.

Founded in 1996, the business started with a small number of vehicles and a straightforward aim: to provide a dependable courier service built on trust, professionalism and getting the job done properly. Thirty years later, those same principles still guide everything we do — but the scale, capability and sophistication of our operation have grown considerably.

How We’ve Evolved Over 30 Years

Over the past three decades, Invicta Couriers has continually adapted to meet changing customer needs, new regulations and advances in vehicle and logistics technology. Today, our operation includes:

• A fleet of around 50 vehicles, supporting customers across the UK and Europe

• A diverse range of vans, including refrigerated vehicles, Lutons and ambient delivery vans

• Specialist temperature-controlled logistics, supported by continuous monitoring and reporting systems

• FORS Silver accreditation, reflecting our commitment to safety, compliance and environmental responsibility

• Ongoing driver training and professional development, ensuring consistently high standards across our team

• Investment in modern tracking, planning and communication systems to improve transparency and reliability

This evolution hasn’t happened overnight. It’s been shaped by listening to our customers and drivers, investing in our people, and continuously improving the way we operate.

Built on People and Partnerships

One of the things we’re most proud of is the long-standing relationships we’ve built with customers, suppliers and staff. Many of our clients have worked with us for years, and some for decades — a level of trust we never take for granted.

Our drivers, controllers and support staff have played a huge part in reaching this milestone. Their professionalism, experience and commitment are central to everything we do.

Looking Ahead

Reaching 30 years in business is an important milestone, but it’s also a reminder that logistics is an industry that never stands still. As we look ahead, our focus remains on:

• Continuing to invest in our fleet and systems

• Maintaining high standards of safety, compliance and reliability

• Supporting our customers as their logistics needs evolve

• Building a sustainable, resilient business for the future

From that early run to Paris in 1996 to the specialist operation we run today, we’re proud of how far we’ve come — and excited about what lies ahead.

Thank you to everyone who has been part of the Invicta Couriers journey over the past 30 years.

How Our Drivers Prepare for Winter – and How We Support Them

Winter Vehicle Checks at Invicta Couriers

As temperatures drop and conditions across the UK become more challenging, our drivers step up their routine checks to make sure every vehicle is safe, compliant, and ready for the road. At Invicta Couriers, winter preparation isn’t an optional extra – it’s part of the discipline that keeps our fleet reliable and our customers’ goods protected.

We operate to FORS Silver standards, and our winter procedures follow the same structured, professional approach we use all year round, backed by training, internal audits, and proper oversight.

What Our Drivers Check Every Day in Winter

Our drivers carry out thorough pre-journey inspections before every shift. In winter, these checks become even more important.

1. Tyres: Grip, Tread and Pressure

Drivers confirm tyre tread exceeds requirements, pressures are correct, and sidewalls are free from damage. Wet, icy, or untreated roads leave no room for mistakes.

2. Lights and Indicators

With darker mornings and early evenings, full lighting checks are essential. Drivers test:

• Headlights

• Fog lights

• Brake lights

• Indicators

• Side and marker lamps

3. Windscreen, Wipers and Screenwash

Drivers check for:

• Cracks or chips that may worsen in the cold

• Wipers need to clear the windscreen. Damaged wiper blades need to be replaced and should be reported immediately.

• Sufficient winter-grade screenwash to prevent freezing. We have ample supply all year and always available to the drivers.

Visibility is non-negotiable.

4. Fluid Levels and Coolant Protection

Drivers verify oil, coolant and AdBlue levels. In winter, the coolant check is especially important to avoid freeze-related issues.

5. Battery & Electrical Systems

Drivers watch for slow cranking, dim lights, or electrical warnings – all early signs a battery may be struggling in the cold. We have our own workshop and further tests can be carried out immediately if there are any doubts.

6. Heaters & Demisters

Before leaving the yard, drivers ensure heaters, cabin blowers, and windscreen demisters are operating properly. A misted screen is unsafe and unacceptable.

7. Doors, Locks & Seals

Drivers check that doors shut and seal properly and that locks aren’t sticking. Frozen doors are a real nuisance if ignored.

8. Refrigeration Systems (Fridge Vans)

For temperature-controlled vehicles, we run a full refrigeration check on a regular basis, we also have regular servicing and calibration of the refrigeration system. The drivers will monitor and report any problems.

Food safety doesn’t take the winter off.

What Invicta Couriers Does to Support Drivers in Winter

We don’t leave winter preparation entirely on the shoulders of the drivers. We back them up with proper systems, equipment, and training.

1. FORS-Aligned Driver Training

All drivers receive training aligned with FORS Silver requirements, covering:

• Safe winter driving

• Hazard awareness

• Poor-weather braking distances

• Defensive driving in adverse conditions

This ensures our winter operations meet national best practice.

2. Regular Fleet Inspections

Our fleet is maintained to a strict schedule. As winter approaches, we carry out:

• Battery testing

• Coolant strength checks

• Tyre inspections and replacements where needed

• Lighting system checks

• Refrigeration unit servicing

Anything doubtful is rectified before it becomes a problem.

3. Winter Consumables Provided

We supply every driver with:

• De-icer

• Ice scrapers

• Winter-rated screenwash

• Gloves

• High-visibility clothing

4. Continuous Temperature Monitoring for Fridge Vans

Our onboard systems continuously send temperature information back to our control office. This allows our controllers and the driver to track temperatures throughout every winter journey, giving peace of mind for temperature-sensitive goods.

5. Assistance and Support When Needed

If a driver has any concern during checks or mid-route, our office supports them:

• Rapid maintenance response (We have our own workshop and can provide fast support on the road)

• Replacement vehicles where required

• Route adjustments due to road conditions

• 24/7 communication with controllers

We look after our drivers so they can look after our customers’ deliveries.

A Professional, Winter-Ready Operation

Winter driving requires patience, preparation and discipline. At Invicta Couriers, we combine driver diligence, proper training, and strong fleet management to ensure every job is completed safely and on time. The safety of our drivers and other road users is our top priority.

Our customers can rely on us because we take winter seriously – and because our team follows the steady, time-tested routines that make transport work smoothly, whatever the weather brings.