Two Groundforce’s divisions have recently been awarded the FORS accreditation by Transport for London. Piletec achieving the Silver and Stopper Specialists the Bronze.
The Freight Operator Recognition Scheme, or FORS, is a unique membership scheme set up to establish industry benchmarks and acknowledge operational efficiency within the freight industry
Having already achieved the FORS Bronze standard Piletec worked to achieve the Silver. This was important as a supplier to the Crossrail project, where this accreditation is a prerequisite to gain access to any Crossrail site.
To achieve Silver accreditation Piletec had to demonstrate that it had maintained the current Bronze standards together with supplying information on driver training and vehicle warning equipment, plus performance measurement and monitoring of fuel usage and costs by distance traveled, transport related CO2 output mileage and records on fines and incidents.
For Stopper Specialists the decision to pursue FORS accreditation was also to provide a best practice standard for depot delivery and collection vehicles, and to demonstrate to their customers that safety and compliance is an area that they are committed to improving and achieving the highest standards in. Having now achieved the accreditation for their Lymington depot they plan to roll out the standard to all other depots supplying London.
Achieving the FORS accreditation ensures the businesses will positively monitor and manage their vehicles, drivers and operations, ensuring transportation duties are carried out safely and efficiently.
Through encouraging and recognising the good working practices of individual operators, the FORS scheme aims to improve all areas of freight distribution in London, including safety, and to reduce CO2 emissions, congestion, collisions and operator costs. The scheme encourages sustainable best practice for road freight operators who undertake deliveries and servicing, or who intend to do so and promotes safe working practices, lawfulness and a corporate social responsibility to improve the performance of road freight operations.
Simon Littlewood from Groundforce said:
We are pleased that we have achieved these FORS accreditations. As a group we are committed to working hard to further improve health safety standards and promote best practice across all our divisions.