Fuel distribution & the digital TDG

Approximately 83 billion litres of fuel are moved annually from refineries and terminals to more than 12,000 sales endpoints found across Canada and the majority of this movement is done via tank truck. If the average volume of a fuel tanker in Canada is ~30 cubic metres (30,000 L) this means over 2.75 million truck trips annually, all of which require Transportation of Dangerous Goods (TDG) paperwork to be compliant with Transport Canada regulations. With each TDG form requiring 4 copies, this paperwork accounts for approximately 11 million pieces of paper annually, increasing every year as fuel consumption continues to climb.

This industry is an ideal use case for PAYLOAD eManifest’s digital TDGs. With so much activity needing to be tracked and properly documented, along with an increased focus on Environment, Social and Governance (ESG) commitments, a digital solution makes enormous sense.

If you aren’t familiar with the current process let’s take a quick look at it:

• Carrier (driver) arrives at a terminal or other fuel storage facility.
• Consignor manually fills in the TDG paperwork and hands the carrier two transporter copies and a Consignee copy, while keeping the consignor copy for their records.
• Driver loads the truck and drives to the sales endpoint for delivery.
• Upon arrival at the sales endpoint the driver hands off the paperwork, keeping one copy for their office records.
• Sales endpoint keeps their copy and sends a copy of completed form back to the consignor confirming the volume received at their location.
• Consignor waits for their copy to come (usually by mail) and stores for auditing and data tracking purposes.

This process can take an average of approximately 30-45 days to complete despite the bulk of the actual work being completed within a couple days of the form originally being generated. During the time the forms are being mailed around there is a black hole of knowledge about the deliveries, volumes, locations, and basically all other transactional data to do with that load. There is also abundant human to human contact points which is of increased concern during a global pandemic.

Now let’s look at the process once Payload’s eManifest and TDG Mobile are in place:

• Carrier (driver) arrives at a terminal or other fuel storage facility.
• Consignor digitally creates and saves the TDG form in PAYLOAD’s eManifest web app which makes it digitally available to the driver on their phone.
• Driver uses PAYLOAD’s TDG Mobile app to view and accept the form (the driver is able to display the form in either online or offline situations).
• Driver loads the truck and drives to the sales endpoint for delivery.
• At sales endpoint driver unloads and digitally confirms delivery, which notifies the consignor of delivery.
• All parties have the completed digital documents and product details stored for viewing and download.

No more repetitive manual entry, no more paper is used, no more physical handoff of documents, no physical storage space needed, no more waiting to confirm delivery or receive paperwork back by mail. All solved by PAYLOAD eManifest’s digital TDG. Think of the savings in stationery and storage costs, the increased visibility into the process, the reduction in manual entry, or the reduction of your environmental footprint. The positive impact on your business leads to a leaner and more competitive company.

To further illustrate the point here is a diagram of the Downstream Sector taken from the Canadian Fuels Association.

Every arrow represents the movement of goods and all these transportation methods (except direct pipelines) requires TDG documentation. Earlier in this post we mentioned approximately 2.75 million truck trips annually for fuel delivery, but that’s if every litre is moved just once. What is more likely is that there will be multiple trips for every litre, which means there is an even more compelling case to completely digitize the TDG process at your company!

Thanks for reading, if you want more information about our solutions or want a demo please contact us at info@payload.com. Have a great day and stay tuned for more posts about our excellent lineup of logistics software solutions!