Europa Road continues to put safety requirements at the forefront of its general domestic transport operations with Dartford-based Sarah Elliott being the most recent team member to have passed her Dangerous Goods Safety Advisor (DGSA) course.
Europa Road provides road freight services for import and export to and from Europe and is part of Dartford-headquartered Europa Worldwide Group.
Going the extra mile for load safety
Under UK regulations, all road haulage companies must appoint a DGSA if the business regularly transports, packs, fills, loads, or unloads goods. Europa Road has gone the extra mile and has supported Sarah – its third employee – in completing this crucial qualification.
Under Department for Transport guidance, Europa Road only needs to have one named DGSA, but because it has multiple sites, significant growth plans and often deals with large, complex operations, it has taken the decision to invest further in its staff.
In her role as Domestic Network Manager at Europa Road’s central hub in Dartford, Sarah is responsible for overseeing shipments that are routed through 16 local sales branch sites across the UK to the state-of-the-art groupage facility at Shield Road.
Ensuring these meet all safety requirements before their onward journey through Europa Road’s European road freight network, is a fundamental part of her role, and one which she takes very seriously.
Sarah Elliott’s comments
“I’m delighted to have gained this qualification because it has really given me more of an insight into how the business monitors compliance with the transportation of certain goods. Assessing these risks and ensuring there are processes in place to record any issues is crucial, and I now feel far more confident in going about my day-to-day work.”
To gain her accreditation, Sarah undertook a two-week training course and sat a detailed examination at the end of the process. She passed with flying colours. The entire process really put her through her paces, testing her knowledge and understanding of what types of hazardous goods could be put together on a vehicle load and the quantities deemed safe.
At the end, Sarah was awarded her official certification, which shows the classes of dangerous goods that she is qualified to advise on. She joins colleagues Simon Burton and Kane Samson in Europa Road’s DGSA cohort and is the first woman in the business to receive this accolade.
On a day-to-day basis, Sarah, Simon, and Kane are all responsible for checking important paperwork which documents a load’s composition and making decisions on whether it meets the prerequisite safety requirements on all onward routes.
They can also operate as agents for their European freight provider counterparts as products move from Europa Road to onward hauliers, since UK DGSA certificates are also officially endorsed by European member states.
Malcolm Castle’s comments
Malcolm Castle, General Manager for Domestic Transport at Europa Road, explained: “We take our safety responsibilities incredibly seriously. That’s why we were keen to support Sarah in completing her DGSA training and certification.
“She is a very capable individual, who took this opportunity in her stride, because she realised it would not only enable her to do her day job to the very best of her ability, it would also provide her with an additional level of expertise to add to her own skills-set.
“For Europa Road, having a third qualified individual means we have expanded our own in-house expertise, ensuring there is an appropriate level of time capacity and internal resource to undertake all safety checks in the most thorough and robust way.”
Europa Road is one of three divisions that sit under ambitious logistics operator Europa Worldwide Group, the others being Europa Warehouse and Europa Air & Sea.
The forward-thinking firm is setting the pace in the market, bringing innovation to the fore through its unique customs product, Europa Flow, which tackles the challenges of the post-Brexit marketplace.
Europa Road provides customers of its European road freight network with the benefits of scheduled, daily, round-trip trunking that allows all shipments to link into Europe every single day. All services are underpinned by the best online IT, shipment tracking, overall high performance, and local account management.
