The Drake Group has received a Product Innovation Award for the O’Phee ‘London’ Double Stack Container Super B-Double Skel trailer.
The Product Innovation Award, as part of the Heavy Vehicle Industry Australia (HVIA) National Awards, recognises HVIA members who have designed, utilised new technology or built an innovative product to address the growing road freight task.
Manufactured by The Drake Group, ‘London’ represents a significant leap forward in the field of container transportation.
Mick O’Phee said it brings a whole new meaning to High Productivity Vehicles (HPV).
The Super B-Double Skel trailer combination, which has also been designed to run as a Super B-triple, can double stack containers with a fully Australian-compliant load restraint system.
It can transport four 40’ containers or eight 20’ containers before a third trailer is added, significantly increasing productivity and efficiency by 100 per cent over current existing Super B-double combinations in a single journey.
This was proven in the combination’s first trial on public roads earlier this year with Qube, where, under stringent safety conditions, it carried eight empty twenty-foot equivalent (TEU) containers on a defined route within Qube’s port facilities and limited public port roads.
Accepting the award on 24 November, Mick O’Phee thanked everyone involved in the project.
“This combination and operation could not happen without the support of the regulators, the stakeholders and of course, due process,” he said.
“Thank you to the NHVR, Port of Brisbane, Transport and Main Roads, the police and our valued customer, Qube.
“The meetings together have been countless and seemed endless throughout this journey.”
O’Phee also took the opportunity to thank NHVR Chief Engineer, Les Bruzsa, for his support.
“Les’ guidance, support and wisdom has been invaluable,” he said.
“We have worked together on many first concepts over 30 years.
“We’ve developed a lot of new things together before Les was even in the NHVR, and I appreciate your valued support.”
The ‘London’ combination was first unveiled earlier this year at the 2023 Brisbane Truck show.
The term ‘London’ was a code O’Phee Trailers used, based on the famous London double decker buses, to keep the project under the radar during the concept, design, manufacturing and approval process.
During the design phase, the combination was subjected to countless regulatory and independent safety and operational assessments.
These included an independent assessment report by O’Brien Traffic, NHVR’s Performance-Based Standards (PBS) Framework and computer simulations which evaluated performance under various loading scenarios, wind monitoring and wind loading assessments, road infrastructure and traffic management assessments on route, load restraint assessments and Swept Path Analysis.
Once it was constructed, ‘London’ went through further safety tests and assessments including physical tilt tests and desktop assessments relating to its stability.
Although it is currently restricted to transporting empty containers on a defined route within Qube’s facility and limited public port roads, The Drake Group has solid enquires from other operators and Ports domestically and internationally that are interested in adopting the high productivity trailer.
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