To be the ultimate logistics service provider, to provide a level of quality that our competitors can only dream of, and to always uphold a customer-focused and quality-driven culture based on a ‘Can Do’ philosophy—these are the goals of State Transport since day one. Our goals represent what we stand for and what is important to us—they help create a company that fosters safety, dedication, and customer service.

State Transport is a family-owned business that provides professional, friendly, and affordable transport and delivery services. Ever since we first opened our business in 1989, we have held steadfast to our commitment to provide meaningful services that impact our clients in a positive manner.

State Transport is an Australian transport service dedicated to offering a wide range of tailored delivery solutions depending on your needs. We provide same day delivery service to the Victorian market and National Road, Rail and Air Services, and 3^rd Party Logistics and Warehousing Services. We are an energetic and dynamic company that boasts of prompt and efficient transport solutions. We always look forward to working with our customers in the long term.

Wherever you’re going in the Melbourne Metropolitan area, State Transport can get you there. Starting out as a small express taxi-truck company in 1989, our little enterprise has been fortunate to grow into the established transportation service that we are today, servicing the most respected names in numerous industries including fabric, paper, inks, machinery, plastic, timber, engineering, food and confectionery, and automotive. Customers trust us because we make sure you get to your destination with the utmost care and sense of urgency.

Running a business – any business – means relying on suppliers and other external parties to ensure you have what you need, when you need it and so the service you deliver to your customers can be maintained to a quality level that keeps you in business.

For many businesses, the daily or weekly inflow of goods is essential to the operation of the business.  All these inwards goods must be transported into store, sometimes from multiple suppliers. And so the transport company carrying these inwards goods becomes a vital and indispensable partner in the supply chain.

At State Transport, we have built a business entirely based on this partnering philosophy with our customers. We recognise that without a regular and totally reliable partner delivering inwards freight to our customers, they simply could not exist as a viable business.  So when we say, we place customer service as our number one priority we mean exactly that.

We know what our customers need and want when it comes to local transport. They want a transport supplier with partnering capability in warehousing, a range of trucks suited to the type and quantity of freight being carried, attention to detail, and a thorough understanding of the type of goods being warehoused, packed, loaded and freighted.

For example, if a business is in the engineering products field, they want to know that their freight partner knows and understands the nature of their particular products, such as its value, its degree of fragility, its need for certain packaging and the extent to which on-time delivery of routine supplies is essential to the running of its business.

At State Transport, we have spent over twenty years perfecting our understanding of our customers’ needs and we take great pride in the close partnering relationships we have built up over this time.

To us, local transport means a local understanding of each and every one of our customer’s particular business needs and a genuine commitment to meeting those needs as if their business was our business – which in a way, it is.

In the business of customer service, nothing is more important than delivering a promise made to a customer on-time, with the right goods, delivered securely and with an attitude of courteous friendly assistance.

When it comes to adaptability, local fast service relies on having the right delivery vehicle ready 24/7 and a driver who knows exactly what he is doing. At State Transport, we have a fleet of over 100 vehicles of every size and configuration, guaranteeing customer order fulfilment on-time, every time.

Taxi trucks make up the bulk of our fleet and are available at short notice for regular or urgent deliveries anywhere in Melbourne or Victoria.

If fact, with the vehicles and facilities we have available, State Transport is able to offer a “Victorian Country Same Day Service”.  That is, we can guarantee to deliver any consignment from small parcels up to 24 tonnes to any address in any Victorian country town within 4 to 8 hours of receiving a customer’s call.

This focus on local transport services has given State Transport an important competitive edge in what is a very competitive market.  Customers don’t want to know the technical details of the trucks or the parcel tracking services. They just want to know that when they book a taxi truck, the transport company is fully equipped and capable to deliver exactly to their needs. These needs nearly always involve the customer’s own obligation to deliver its own promise to one of its customers – and that’s all they care about.

So by presenting our business with an attitude of quiet efficiency and demonstrating competency, we directly address the needs and concerns of our customers, without any show of technical irrelevance or “chest beating”.  Just good old-fashioned quality customer service.

The evidence of our taxi truck service efficiency is shown in how we do things. Our taxi trucks are always clean and neat; our drivers are in uniform and courteous; our paperwork is already ready and accurate and our customer’s delivery is always made on-time and without any hassle. Quiet efficiency – it’s all the customer wants.

The recent grounding of all Cootes’ fuel tankers for major defects should be a wake-up call to all fleet operators. It appears that despite previous fleet groundings last October, Cootes still have not addressed the need to put in place proper and adequate maintenance programs and schedules.

To have 25 fuel tankers out of 32 inspected, fail a vehicle safety check is clear evidence that this company is either totally incompetent or is playing with dice that it will get away with short cuts in order to save costs.

The trouble is this is a high-risk strategy that puts peoples’ lives at risk. Proof of this is that two people have already died when a Cootes tanker exploded in flames in Sydney last year.  In order to save a few dollars, Cootes are risking the lives of their own drivers, other road users and the general public.

It is a perfect example of false economics to say that if we cut corners on fleet maintenance, we will save money for the company and no-one will know.  This attitude ignores the reality that dollars save through shoddy or poor maintenance will be lost many times over when a major accident again occurs, or when the inspectors ground entire fleets for extended periods of time, or when Cootes faces hefty fines and possibly even a loss of accreditation for flaunting not just the rules but also common sense and sound business practice too.

We at State Transport have a strong corporate ethical view on the subject of fleet maintenance and place a high priority on regular, professional and proper maintenance of every one of our trucks. Even though we do not transport fuel and LPG, we consider it vital that, even for ordinary low-risk freight, each and every one of our trucks should at all times be safe on the road. We owe it to our drivers, our customers and the general public to ensure that something as basic as a road-worthy truck is as fundamental to our business as is the need to guarantee a prompt and efficient delivery of our customers’ freight.  How can we guarantee this if we cannot guarantee the safety of our trucks? We cannot and we don’t.

Transport safety, starting with vehicle maintenance, is fundamental to our business and an essential part of the promise we give to our customers – now and in the future.

When handling the logistics of food warehousing and transport, it is essential that every aspect of the process is known, predictable and measurable. To fail to have control systems in place means that food service and food processing businesses risk contamination of the products they supply to their customers.

The HACCP accreditation system was originally developed for NASA to keep astronauts’ food safe when they had no access to alternative supplies and had to be 100% confident that their food was safe to consume.

Basically, without HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points) food safety procedures were reactive.  That is, standards and solutions were developed after a problem was identified. But of course, this meant that there could never be any certainty that each new batch of food was OK for human consumption – hardly a satisfactory situation for any food producer or restaurant.

By adopting the proactive HACCP procedures, food handlers have a standard set of procedures that involve measuring and recording each step in the food handling process, and then taking active action to correct (or discard) sub-standard products.

In terms of how this impacts of all participants in a food products supply chain, it means that every point of contact or handling of a food item is subject to standardised and measurable testing and action to correct any short-comings.

At State Transport, we operate our warehouses as an integral part of our customers’ supply chain and so we have in place active HACCP procedures so that we can guarantee that all food lines handled by us are a known quantity that our customers can always rely on.

The same applies to food lines that are transported from interstate or overseas. There are certain quarantine requirements that are in place to ensure that there is no contamination to local food producers from introduced pest and diseases. These form the standards and procedures of the Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service (AQIS) and are also an integral part of the operations of State Transport warehouses and the company’s logistics standards and procedures.

Warehousing services represent a major component in supply chain logistics. As a local transport company, State Transport fully integrates its warehousing facilities into our customers’ supply chain operations.  We do this by providing quality 3PL logistics and warehousing services.

That is, 3PL, or third party logistics, are tailored and scaled to exactly match the freight and warehousing requirements of each of our customers.

As specialists in 3PL warehousing, we at State Transport have facilities far in excess of those of our typical customer, and so we have the benefit of size, economies of scale and specialisation, leaving our customers free to focus on their core business.

In delivering our 3PL services, State Transport is able to offer each customer the pick of a full range of logistics services.  These include a total of 8,000 square metres of warehouse space with 6,000 pallet locations, specialised services such as pick & pack operations, gift pack assembly, EDI scanning, labelling, container unloading and bulk goods breakdown and repackaging.

Each of these services means that 3PL warehousing becomes an integral part of our customers’ business operations and makes State Transport a critical supply chain partner – a role we take very seriously and stake our reputation on.

3PL warehousing services means that irrespective of the size or sophistication of each customer’s warehousing requirements, State Transport will tailor a suite of services to exactly meet the needs of each customer. This includes the flexibility to handle seasonal peaks and changes, variations in the product mix, personalised packaging for individual customers, and multiple delivery addresses.

Although we position ourselves as a localised transport and logistics company, with a focus on operations in Melbourne and Victoria, we have the flexibility and experience to handle all logistics requirements of our customers, including interstate and overseas freight, even if such services are only required on an irregular basis.

But it is as a local transport specialist that State Transport is able to provide the ultimate in personalised 3PL warehousing services.