There are dozens of smart new road transport and distribution operations popping up around Australia and many are moving away from the traditional trucking model and finding new 21st century business models, PowerTorque visits one of them Motus Transport in Sydney, and asks about their ‘motus operandi’.

The way to develop a new road transport business in the current environment seems to be to look at how a task is currently working, then talk to the end user, the customer, and look at the business from their point of view. This is what happened for Andy Harris and his wife Emily.

In 2016 the operation began with Andy hiring a van and Emily processing orders from home. The growth in the intervening years has seen the fleet grow to over 70 vehicles transporting craft beer and other beverages across a large area of NSW and SE Queensland. The business has two warehouses in Sydney and one in Brisbane, as well as warehouses in Canberra, Newcastle, Coffs Harbour and Byron Bay).

Andy says that Motus Transport’s aim is to act as an indispensable partner to customers and an extension of their business, by simplifying the process of transport and delivering great service. The Motus team are a close-knit team of diverse people, dedicated to this vision and share a love for good beer (beverages) and great people.

“We started really small, I was driving a truck myself and then one person said, ‘we’ve got a brew coming out, on this date, you need to have a warehouse’,”says Andy. “I just hired a truck, then went from there.”

The service Motus offers to the brewery is handling all the warehousing and distribution for craft brewers, as beer comes off the end of the production line. The trucks either pick up from the brewery or the brewery delivers it to the Motus warehouse.

It is then stored in a large cool room. It’s not just beer, it’s also sparkling water and and other beverages, delivered on their behalf. Trucks run all around Sydney, to Canberra, Newcastle, Coffs Harbour, Byron Bay and SE Queensland. In terms of storage, they have10,000 square metres in Sydney and another14,000 square metres in Brisbane.

“This year is a bit of a settle down and consolidate, and just make sure that we’re going to get everything right,” says Andy.

Motus means to move in Latin, and the logo includes a wing, which derives from Mercury’s helmet (Mercury was the Roman god of speed). The recently purchased Hino 300 Series hybrid trucks are named after Greek or Roman gods.

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