Frasers Transport has come in at number four on this year’s Top 25 Livestock Transporters list.

WARWICK-based Frasers Livestock Transport fleet size may not have changed much since the 2013 Top 25 but the company is moving more cattle than ever using less resource due to an operational strategy employed over the past 10 years.

Managing director Ross Fraser says more trucks loaded more often equates to a win-win for his company, one of the oldest continuously running family livestock transport businesses in Australia.

“Historically, livestock trucks have been loaded only 48-50 per cent of the time. It’s the nature of the business.

“We have structured our business around having trucks loaded more – and it’s working.”

“Holding yards at Goondiwindi, Roma and Warwick depots and roadtrain cross-loading ramps at Rockhampton, Toowoomba and Roma allow transhipping and spelling of more than 2000 cattle per week”.

Frasers currently operate a fleet of 50 Kenworth prime movers and 137 Byrne trailers with a total uplift capacity of 217.5 decks. A combination of new technology, improved communications and livestock producers expanding herd size has contributed to increased capacity to deliver.

“We are satellite-tracking trucks, issuing driver directions via on-board computers and monitoring for improved safety and driver-education,” Mr Fraser said.

The fleet is equipped with “seeing-eye” technology that enables immediate response to any lapse in driver-concentration.

A dashboard-mounted camera tracks eye movements and alerts both the company and the driver of any possible lapse that might indicate, for instance, that the driver is losing concentration.

“We are convinced there are fewer fatigue-related incidents because of this technology which reduces on-road risk to drivers and live cargo and to the general public, which is the most important thing”.

Driver-training is another major focus for Frasers with the aim not only of improved road safety and livestock handling but also ensuring that, as the public face of the Company and the industry, drivers are compliant with all aspects of road-usage and animal welfare.

“We transport livestock over 7 million kilometres every year, so we are front-and-centre when it comes to animal welfare,” Mr Fraser said.

“One of the most important aspects we have worked on is loading-density as prescribed in animal welfare codes of practice. We take this responsibility very seriously and train our staff accordingly.”

Brothers Ross and Les Fraser with the third generation of the Frasers Transport Warwick Fraser, who is a director and general manager.

Environmentally responsible

The company is mindful of responsibility to the environment with an impressive record in reduction of emissions. National Greenhouse Energy Regulator figures show Frasers have reduced emissions by 16 per cent over the past decade.

“There would not be a major transport operator in this country not reducing emissions just as we have,” Ross Fraser said.

“Smaller companies have made progress in this area as well but may not have the information readily available because they don’t have to report their emissions to a national register.

“The major players have real points on the board with emissions-reduction and it is happening across the industry. But you don’t hear about that in media.

“I don’t think the transport industry is telling that story well enough”.

Apart from technology advances enabling more fuel-efficient engines, there are contributing human factors such as advanced driver-training.

“Better driver training helps reduce fuel usage and turnover on things like tyres.”

While heavy-vehicle engines are becoming more efficient, electric and hydrogen trucks are still a long way from being able to service the transport industry, Ross Fraser said.

“You would be a fool to say it will never happen, but the way it is at the moment it would be hard to see electric trucks become part of the livestock transport industry.

“Like electric cars, they are more suited to built-up areas and freight trucks moving up and down the coast.

“Battery life would need to increase and something would need to be done about the tare weight for us to be able to consider those alternatives”.

Long-term strategy on workforce

Ross Fraser believes good community relationships help develop pathways to attracting drivers to the specialised field of livestock transport. The current staff includes second- and third-generation drivers.

“We train drivers across our operation, starting-off in the truck wash, then into a body truck with local pick-up and deliveries and eventually into a fleet truck operating anywhere across the Eastern States. Drivers may move into operations or administrative roles, bringing their hands-on experience and expanding skills-sets to other aspects of the operation.

“Our workshop offers school-based traineeships, an initiative which has proved a great innovation in Queensland. We can employ a secondary school student one day a week in the workshop and they come out the end of Year 12 and straight into a second-year apprenticeship. That is where we source most of our tradespeople who may progress within the Company to management roles.

“Our current workshop and fabrication foremen both came through that system with Frasers.”

80 years on

Established in September 1944, Frasers is one of the country’s oldest livestock carriers operating under original family ownership and now into its third generation.

Charles Missen Fraser and his wife, Edna, founded the business during the war, carrying chickens and hay around the Warwick district before concentrating on livestock transport.

The early years of Frasers Transport.

The second generation took Frasers through a significant period of growth with sons Ross, Les and Peter expanding the operation to Goondiwindi, Dalby, Toowoomba, Roma and Rockhampton during long careers in the transport industry started by tagging-along with their father. Ross and Les Fraser are still active in the business. A third generation is now involved with Les’s son Warwick Fraser now a Director and General Manager.