Unimog

Report
An example of best-practice methods
In the English county of Wiltshire, two Unimog with implements
combinations from Unimog System Partner Bucher-Schörling,
Mulag and Schmidt are used for economical cleaning work
Like communal administrations in Germany,
those in England also have to
work with limited budgets, and taxpayers
expect them to demonstrate their efficiency.
This is why the County of Wiltshire recently
invested in devices and implements for the
community that ensure efficient use of the
Unimog system and encourage the citizens
to be proud of the place they live in. The
“Wiltshire Highways Partnership” is a network
of companies and communities created
for the purpose of sharing road maintenance
duties in the county. The concept arose out
of the necessity to use Wiltshire’s winter
service fleet capacity to the fullest extent.
Another decisive factor was the fact that the
county has many main roads that are maintained
by an external service provider rather
than by the national authority.
Since the autumn of 2002, a U 400 and,
following its successful results, more
recently a U 500 have been operated all the
year round. Eighty percent of the winter
service vehicles previously stood idle for
eight or nine months of the year, as they
were permanently equipped with spraying
equipment, but this has changed with the
advent of the Unimog. It is equipped with a
snow plough, salt spreader and gritter devices,
but can also carry mowers, weed
brushes and replaceable sweepers for use in
the summer. The combination of Unimog
and attachments from Schmidt, Mulag and
Bucher-Schörling is giving full satisfaction
in Wiltshire, especially since the increasing
degree of automation applied to individual
work processes, for which fewer staff are
now needed, makes the investments twice as
profitable.
With the potential of its power hydraulic
system, the Unimog can drive different kinds
of machinery such as hedge cutting tools,
mowers, weed brushes, cutting devices for
gullies and road drains and the Bucher-
Schörling road sweeper. People and material
can be transported to the working location
quickly – in short, these are compact, highly
agile vehicles. Those responsible are particularly
grateful for the implement carriers
used in picturesque towns such as Marlborough
and Devizes, in villages and in
tourist centres such as Stonehenge and the
Avebury Circle.
On the continent of Europe, where
Unimogs and Mulag machinery have been a
common sight on the roads for decades, the
communities definitely prefer this combination.
Things are often done differently in
Great Britain: kerb and gutter maintenance
is very important here and only certain
machines can be used for it.
The “Wiltshire Highways Partnership” is a
model scheme in which machinery and
people both work with optimum efficiency.
The option of being able to install the equipment
combinations on both Unimogs plays
an important role for this. Network support
manager Paul Smith, who coordinates the
cooperation process and the equipment
schedules, is highly enthusiastic: “We are at
the beginning of a learning process right
now. Before long we shall see what can be
accomplished!”
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The U 500 with an impressive number of devices
including a weed brush and a Bucher-Schörling sweeper
Unimog 2|2003 15