Owned network of facilities provides the edge for haulage company

The mining industry has played a significant part in the project cargo road haulage conducted by the major southern African trucking operation, Durban-based TCS Logistics. According to MD Rogan Brent, the product it offers to mining customers and other road transport users is designed to follow the TCS motto: “Africa Just Got Smaller”. “If you want to run a successful trucking operation in southern Africa,” he told FTW, “you have to extend your own tentacles into the neighbouring states with which you deal. “You have to create an owned network of facilities and people if you want to work your vehicle fleet in a self-controlled environment.” Following this basic philosophy, his now 13-year-old company has established infrastructure in Durban, Johannesburg, Messina, Beitbridge, Harare, Lusaka, Chirundu, Mwanza and Blantyre – with offices and workshops at all these centres. The total fleet – including Brent’s self-owned lowbed fleet of 10 rigs varying between 40 and 70-ton capacity – comprises about 200 trucks and trailers. Some 85 of these – ranging from general cargo and fuel to abnormal load outfits – belong to TCS’s main contractor, the Zimbabwe-owned Tauya. “About another 100 that we manage belong to other dedicated subcontractors,” said Brent. “Our bread and butter is, and always will be, containerised cargo, but we also have an extensive business in hauling abnormal loads into Zimbabwe, Zambia, DRC, Malawi, Mozambique and Botswana.” Asked to highlight activity specifically directed at the southern African mining industry, Brent chose a heavy-haul conducted last year. “We were awarded the movement of four Komatsu 930E dump trucks ex Durban to Chingola for a Zambian mining concern,” he said, “taking on the project under Access Freight Projects. Together, we executed the movement of the four massive machines flawlessly.” The project took up a total of 36 truck loads – carrying four chassis of 50 metric tonnes each; the four rock bodies (cut in half for ease of transport); and the 4-metre diameter tyres, breakbulk cargo and containerised components. When the vessel arrived in the Durban port on a Saturday morning, TCS had the 36 trucks lined up to receive the cargo – with the transport team headed personally by Brent. “We worked non-stop from vessel arrival until completion of discharge to clear the holds,” he told FTW. “This included the welding of reinforcing and supports to the rock bodies for loading, as they are asymmetrical and very difficult to load. “This project was one of the many carried into Zambia, DRC, Zimbabwe, Malawi and Botswana last year,” said Brent, “but this particular consignment was of particular significance due to the nature of this cargo.”