Victorian transport company moves its fleet towards Allison-equipped trucks to reduce driveline maintenance costs by at least 50 percent

GEELONG, Australia - Malec Brothers Transport Group operates a fleet of 35 general freight and logging vehicles. The fleet was mired down by high driveline maintenance costs due to its manual transmission-equipped, medium-duty freight delivery trucks.

After some exhaustive research, the company decided to purchase Allison-equipped Fuso Fighter 1024 automatics to replace trucks used for general freight in and around its base in Geelong.

Located 75 kilometers from Melbourne on the edge of Corio Bay, Geelong is Victoria's second biggest city with a population of close to 250,000. The first Fuso Fighter Autos joined the Malec Brothers' fleet mid-way through 2013.

The company now has a total of 13 of the Allison-equipped trucks operating economically and reliably on roundtrip runs to Melbourne as well as to other regional city centres.

According to Malec Brothers CEO Matthew Malec, "The cost of clutch and driveline repairs was increasing dramatically, and our maintenance budgets were under real pressure. We decided that automatics would be the way forward."

Malec Brothers set a target to reduce maintenance costs by 50 per cent, and in current projections that should be achievable given the reliability and service-life expectations of the Allison-equipped trucks.

The switch to automatic transmissions was not just to lower maintenance costs, but also a way to widen driver recruitment, a real challenge for the transport industry. In addition to meeting driver demand, it is difficult to find highly skilled drivers who know how to properly manage manual trucks.

Allison-equipped trucks enable companies to cast a wider net and recruit drivers with less experience, who can then be more easily trained to drive trucks without the need to be experts at changing gears and using a clutch.

"Our drivers, both the well-established experts and our more recent recruits, are really happy about driving the Fuso Autos. They make the job a lot easier, particularly when negotiating the increasingly busy streets of Geelong and Melbourne," he said.

The company's Fuso Fighter Autos are all equipped with curtain side freight bodies and are powered by Fuso's 7.5-liter six cylinder, direct injection, turbo diesel engine - coupled to an Allison 2500 five-speed fully automatic transmission.

About Allison Transmission
Allison Transmission (NYSE: ALSN) is the world's largest manufacturer of fully automatic transmissions for medium- and heavy-duty commercial vehicles, and is a leader in hybrid-propulsion systems for city buses. Allison transmissions are used in a variety of applications including refuse, construction, fire, distribution, bus, motorhomes, defense and energy. Founded in 1915, the company is headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana, USA and employs approximately 2,700 people worldwide. With a market presence in more than 80 countries, Allison has regional headquarters in the Netherlands, China and Brazil with manufacturing facilities in the U.S., Hungary and India. Allison also has approximately 1,400 independent distributor and dealer locations worldwide. For more information, visit allisontransmission.com.

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