Truck and Track Autumn 2021

www.truckandtrack.com Autumn 2021 Truck and Track 41 UPN – (UNITED PALLET NETWORK) – FINALIST – MULTIMODAL – PALLET NETWORK OF THE YEAR 2021 Covid was hitting its UK peak, how did that go? Our planned date to move into our new site was the 15th May 2020 a plan that was 24 months in the making. We were at the final stages of construction when Covid hit and with the superb assistance of our support contractors we were able to continue development work right through the early stages of Covid safely to meet our target date. Our support contractors were fantastic, they worked extremely closely with us constantly reviewing the situation and helping to ensure we were in our new home on schedule. Given the way that our volumes have increased over the course of 2021 it really was a godsend that we moved in on schedule. Our volumes rose to levels that we hadn’t seen in the past and hadn’t predicted this early into our move. We had the capacity to deal with increased volumes and we were able to maintain service performance. How are things now, a year on? What a 12 months! Brexit! Covid! Driver Shortage! Increased Volumes! We’ve risen to the change though both centrally and as a network. We’ve settled in smoothly into our new home which is a far superior facility to our previous location. Some great new members have joined our network; our volumes are up, our service levels are continuing to improve. The future looks very bright for UPN and our member network. “Competition drives standards, service levels, and overall performance, which can only be good for service users” Its UPNs 20th year in business, how do you feel that the sector has changed in that time? The sector has changed massively; there have been huge changes in many respects. There are now eight networks each with their own distinct identity so it’s become much more competitive. It’s a good thing actually because competition UPN SmartHUB UPN SmartHUB opened in May 2020 - Right in the midst of the Covid Pandemic!