Night work – what TJ gets up to after dark…

In recent years, TJ has expanded its offering to deliver overnight services, which provides a range of benefits, both for ourselves as well as the clients that have a need for work to be carried out at night.

When Kevin Longland, TJ’s Commercial & Operations Supervisor joined the company in 2014 as a driver, it wasn’t long before he was offered a job in the transport office. His organisational and leadership skills shone through and he was soon asked to manage the Bristol operation that was just getting off the ground.

After relocating to Bristol, Kevin began to manage the night work for the whole company as part of his role. He said:

“Our lorries can be found anywhere from Gloucester to Brighton during the nighttime hours; I plan and manage those movements on a day-today basis to ensure all jobs get completed on schedule. We carry out a lot of remedial work, which allows clients to get on with other work during the day. We’ve done a lot of night work on the M4, M5 and M27 Smart Motorway improvement works, delivering asphalt and other aggregates.”

What is night work?

Night work is any job that is undertaken between the hours of 8pm and 6am, during those quiet, off peak hours when most of us are sleeping. At this time, we can undertake any type of haulage work, from assisting with night works, to transporting materials and providing muck away services.

What type of work do we undertake at night?

As mentioned above, we can undertake a range of services at night, but the majority of our current workload revolves around assisting on road projects. Nighttime is ideal for carrying out this type of work as the roads are quiet, so closing them to undertake work will not not cause major disruption or delays as it would during the day, just minimal inconvenience.

The work involves transporting aggregates, often from compounds to the main sites, and planing off road surfaces and transporting the used surfacing off site. Where these materials go will depend on the client – sometimes they will ask for them to be taken to quarries, and other times to farms and country parks, where the materials will be reused for  other purposes such as track surfacing. 

Sometimes TJ is asked to take the materials away to their own locations and in these cases, TJ will take them to their quarry at Butser, near Petersfield, where it will be used to make TJ’s very own recycled aggregate, known as iBlend. 

Benefits of night work

For the client:

• We are very versatile and flexible; we’re able to give clients a very quick turnaround on services, sometimes delivering as quickly as the next working day if required.
• Our availability is high and we’re very reliable so whatever your requirements, we’ll be able to help.
• Utilising our services at night is very cost effective for us – and we pass those savings onto you.
• With little traffic on the road, everything will be achieved a lot faster than during the day.

For us:

• Enables us to utilise our fleet for twice as many hours of the day, making it very cost effective.
• Allowing us to expand the business whilst utilising existing resources.
• Raising awareness of the TJ brand, especially in the infrastructure sector.

Night work facts

• In March 2021, we recorded 445 night work shifts across our fleet.
• We started with two clients in 2014 and now have 15 regulars.
• TJ’s night work programme has been running for seven years.
• Revenue generated by night work has grown year on year.
• We utilise our fleet of arctic, tipper and grab lorries for our night work.
• 90% of our night work is road construction work.
• We do a lot of night work on motorway improvement works – to date, we’ve contributed to projects on the M4, M5 and M27 as well as various A Road infrastructure maintenance and improvements.
• TJ also offers their night work service to the rail and industrial sectors.

Find out more about Kevin’s role, the services TJ offers or get in touch to enquire about utilising our services at night.