The peak readiness playbook for fleets under pressure

When Samsarians watch football this summer, we don’t just see the sport’s crowning glories — we see a feat of logistics. A vast network of operators has sprung into action to make every match a seamless global spectacle. They’ve built the stadium infrastructure, delivered equipment, food, water, and medicine, and constructed real grass pitches over the astroturf. They’ve even set up the VAR (though you might wish they hadn’t). 

For most of these firms, the tournament is the peak of their year. The pressure is relentless, and mistakes aren’t tolerated. But just as the players’ set piece routines are the result of months of training, these operators succeed because they’ve built internal systems that never buckle under strain. 

You might not be bidding on any contracts for international cups, but if you’ve got a spike in demand coming up, this is the playbook to follow. 

1. Don’t rely on surge hiring

Meeting high demand by surge-hiring agency staff and temporary drivers is an old tactic that doesn’t work anymore. 

The Road Haulage Association (RHA) has warned that the UK must train up 60,000 new HGV drivers every year to meet current demand. The acute shortage that washed over the industry five years ago has not been remedied, so leaving make-or-break moments in the hands of a tight labour market will make you a hostage to fortune. 

Even if you do find the staff through this route, agency cover carries a margin of roughly 20–35% on top of driver pay. You might be able to service the peaks in demand, but at these rates, can you truly say you’re capitalising on them? 

2.  Build capacity with the two Rs

 Building and maintaining a reliable workforce is a long-term job, with two essential elements: retention and redundancy. 

Retention

39% of UK logistics staff report job insecurity - the highest of any British industrial sector. Given Samsara’s own polling found that 41% of drivers were likely to leave their jobs in the next year, it’s clear that British logistics has a churn problem. 

Without a strong retention strategy, you’ll bear the high costs of constantly replacing staff amidst a driver shortage. And that’s before you factor in the twelve months it can take to get new drivers familiar with the nuts and bolts of an organisation. 

Peter Cox, Head of Transport at CLEAN Linen, has built an in-house Driver Academy to help new hires stick. “Over roughly six months, new starters rotate through customer service, engineering and the factory floor. That builds context and pride.” 

For Amber Kirkby, Fleet Systems Team Leader at Lanes Group, retention comes from “recognition and well-being, not just pay.” Amber uses telematics data to reward drivers for behaviour changes like reducing speeding, so that staff know their managers appreciate their efforts. 

Don’t forget the value of institutional memory — it’s much easier to lose it than to build it back again. 

Redundancy 

Super subs save the day. When you’re preparing for a surge, you need spare vehicles (and people to drive them) to fall back on if breakdowns or accidents strike. Your bench strength makes the difference between a narrow win and complete failure.  

But bench strength isn’t just about spare assets. It’s also about how much you can see of your operations. A clear view of your fleet’s current utilisation rate - where your vehicles are, how much fuel they have in the tank, and how many are back at the depot - will show you how to divert resources when the unexpected happens. 

As logisticians have learned from the last few years’ turbulence, the just-in-time model fails in an era of frequent disruption. Slack in the system keeps you resilient. 

3. Hold your form

Fans know the pain of seeing their team concede a goal in the 89th minute because complacent defenders drifted out of formation. They knew what shape they were meant to be in, but getting sloppy hadn't come with any consequences - until it did. 

Social scientists call this ‘normalisation of deviance’, where standards drift until something breaks. In a fleet, that can mean behaviours like mobile phone usage or distracted driving going uncorrected until they become routine. Managers often can’t see it happening until it’s too late. 

Antony Draper, Director of HSEQ at Vp Brandon Hire Station, wanted to sense-check the company’s perception that it “didn’t have a problem” with unsafe driving habits. He used Samsara AI Dash Cams to find out “the absolute truth.” With 449 detections of mobile phone usage in the first month alone, it was clear that standards had truly slipped. 

Antony and his team re-imposed high standards across the fleet by building on the data with targeted coaching. Soon, the company had achieved a 93% reduction in mobile phone usage, alongside a 78% drop in inattentive driving. These kinds of structural fixes will stop your peaks turning into your lowest points. But you have to embed consistency in the quieter periods, or budding habits will break under strain. 

4. Build trust

Great managers trust their players to make their own calls, rather than micromanaging from the sidelines. 

At peak season, your team’s trust levels are tested to their limit. Manager capacity is stretched thin, leaving drivers to make their own calls. At first glance, putting a camera in every cab seems like doing the opposite. Drivers almost always start off feeling like they’re being spied on. But you can change this perception if you’re careful in how you introduce the technology. 

The fastest way to break the 'us and them' dynamic is to prove the system works before asking everyone to trust it. FM Conway trialled Samsara across a portion of its fleet before rolling it out to all 1,000 vehicles, giving drivers the chance to see the system in action before it became mandatory for everyone.

Managers also need to be explicit that the real point of the cameras, first and foremost, is to protect drivers. Susan Moore, Road Risk Manager at Vp Brandon Hire Station, describes an incident where one of her drivers was joining a motorway when a motorcyclist collided with the vehicle, and "the dual-facing dash cam footage captured it all, and our colleague was exonerated." Once one driver sees that the cameras can get them out of a tough spot, a whole depot's mindset can change overnight.

People trust systems that reinforce human empathy, rather than trample over it. Lanes Group have built wellbeing checks directly into drivers’ daily workflow. If someone is struggling, the system automatically alerts a wellbeing champion to reach out within the hour. "It demonstrates to our employees that they're not just a number, they're part of the Lanes family,” said Amber. 

If your people are struggling, you need to make sure they trust you enough to let them help you. Otherwise the pressure of a busy season will find them first. 

5. Pursue the insurance benefits 

All the work you do to prepare for pressure shouldn’t go unrewarded. 

Insurers need evidence to price your risk lower, and most fleets can’t produce that when it matters most. At peak season, more drivers cover more miles with less time to document everything properly. Without proof of what your fleet is doing to reduce its exposure, insurers will demand a higher rate.  

That’s what happened to Krishnan Rathour, Head of Claims and Insurance at OCU Group: "We didn't have a platform which allowed us to obtain crash alerts, review clear footage, and assess all driver behaviours to establish liability. This would delay the processing of each claim." But within eight months of fixing that with a functional telematics infrastructure, they had brought down their total claim costs by 42%. 

How to use the quiet weeks

Winners aren't born under the floodlights, that's just where they shine. The work happens long before kick-off: in the drivers you kept rather than replaced, the standard you held when nobody was watching, the trust you built before you needed it, and the evidence you'd already banked before an insurer ever asked for it.

The tournament is almost over, and a new peak will come along soon. It’s time to build a system that can handle it. 

Want to hear it from the operators who've actually done it? Watch the full conversation with Mulgrew Haulage’s Matt Crossland and Sysco GB’s Paul Duncalf here.