Shears Bros Transport Ltd was founded in 1930 and was primarily in fruit and vegetable haulage. The  Company is now in the third generation of family ownership with a  very different mix of traffic and a turnover of £4m. Based at Bournemouth Airport  the haulage  company now operates a fleet of 39, made up of four artics, twenty  18 tonners, five 7.5 tonners, five long wheelbase Sprinters and four small vans.

Warehousing has  become important recently with the opening of a 15,000 sq ft fully racked  facility at Wimborne with plans in place to expand to 45,000 sq ft,  complementing the 20,000 sq ft at Bournemouth.  The haulage business today centres on next day pallet work. Shears is a member of the  Pallex network and does three trunks to the Leicestershire hub every day with  two double deck trailers. The day trunk from the hub carries 'economy' three  day pallets. On return the artics are used locally for full load day work.  Shears is able to get 24 hour working out of their premium tractors.

Shears use Haulage Exchange to take pressure off their  general haulage department work and  complement its regular collection and delivery activity with full loads and back loads.  "We take lots of big loads off Haulage  Exchange and use sub contract loads for long distance work north of Bristol using the site to  find quality hauliers locally," says Steve Meakins Group Development  Executive.

Shears is already  collaborating with other Haulage  Exchange members including Daltons of Southampton and Bruce Express for  full loads and back  loads in to their areas and over 50% of the loads and back loads they put on the site gets picked up.

Download the Shears Bros Transport Ltd case study (PDF)