Fuel, no matter the grade or type, is a valuable commodity. It keeps many of the world’s infrastructures up and running, from commuters in personal vehicles and buses to utilities crews crisscrossing town. Because of its value to our society, those buying and selling fuel want to make sure they are getting the most out of it. You’ve seen this in action all the time; customers shake the last drips from the nozzle, and retailers want every drop delivered to the proper underground storage tank.
Tank truck drivers are the ones counted on to deliver the right amount and grade of fuel to retail stations, but dispensing the full amount of fuel from each tank trailer compartment can become difficult based on a number of complications. For example, a trailer that loses air pressure and causes a valve to shut prematurely, or a station’s unloading area being unlevel, can incorrectly signal to a driver that the unloading process is done. A little extra product left behind can trigger disputed deliveries, which happens in one out of every 4,000 deliveries. Retained fuel can also linger until the next terminal loading, causing crossover of incompatible gas octanes or even a diesel and gasoline mix.
Because fuel shortages hurt driver-station relationships, and because mixed fuel can cause time-consuming clean-ups and compromise customer vehicles, a little leftover product is a big deal. Retained fuel may also lead to an overfill condition, which is a dangerous fire hazard and a costly waste of fuel.
Current fixes for these issues are hardly sufficient. A bucket test, where a driver manually checks for fuel left in hoses, cannot ensure an empty tank, and retain probes are effective but narrowly adopted, with only 20% of trailers in United States utilizing them. To give delivery drivers a hand, and keep the fuel supply chain running more confidently, OPW’s tank truck equipment provider, Civacon, introduced the CivaCommand Smart Tank System, a single interface that gives drivers digital tools to prevent and monitor fuel retention, crossover and overfill.
Defining What’s Next in Tank Truck Technology
OPW understands the needs of every party affected by the fuel delivery supply chain. Through the company’s Civacon brand, OPW serves retail stations, their customers and the drivers that service these stations. If a tank truck fuel delivery error is caught in time, disputes are still inconvenient for all involved, and if an error is unnoticed, damaged vehicles and ruined reputations are a distinct possibility.
Get the full story on Civacon’s total tank trailer solution, CivaCommand, and stay on top of the latest products and industry news from Civacon at civacon.com, or on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.