Fleet Management

Fleet Management Guide

Fleet management is exactly what the name suggests: it is the management of a company’s transportation fleet, whether that is made up of cars, vans, trucks or a mixture of the vehicles.

With vehicle investment being such a huge part of a business’s profile, fleet management is designed to remove or minimise some of the risks associated with running a fleet and reduce the paperwork and time taken to keep track of your vehicles. From meeting government legislation, to improving efficiency, fleet management can offer numerous advantages: here we take a look at how it works and the options available to your business including fleet software and fleet management companies.

What does fleet management include?

Exactly what is included in a fleet management package is largely dependent on your business and what your requirements are. However, some of the options you may wish to benefit from include:

- Accident management: When one or more of your vehicles is involved in an accident it can cause serious disruption to your business. Fleet management can take away some of this hassle by providing a comprehensive incident reporting process that may include elements such as helping you recover uninsured losses; salvage management; contacting insurers; on-site vehicle damage inspection; and more.

- Collection and delivery: Taking care of vehicle movements, including carefully planned collections and deliveries to limit the time your vehicles are off the road.

- Cost management: Ensuring that there is no unnecessary spend on your fleet, that parts are sourced efficiently and maintenance is kept to a minimum.

- Maintenance planning: Helping you keep your vehicles in ideal condition so that they perform most effectively. This can include minimising the downtime of scheduled servicing and maintenance events.

- Online portals and reporting: Presenting you with in-depth insight into your fleet while being able to create your own reports and analysis on fleet expenditure.

- Vehicle engine mapping: Designed to help you get the most from the fuel economy of your vehicles while limiting your CO2 emissions.

- Warranty control: Taking advantage of manufacturer warranties can be cost effective but managing these warranties can be time consuming. Warranty control can help with factors such as applying for reimbursements or loss-of-use claims.

What about vehicle tracking?

A factor that is included in nearly all forms of fleet management is vehicle tracking. This is usually GPS-based and is used to provide vital information about your fleet and to present it to you through computer software.

The advantages of vehicle tracking can be far reaching. They can help you locate vehicles in the event of an accident or theft; help you ensure that your drivers are where they should be; and help you make a thorough analysis of how your vehicles are being driven. So for example, if two drivers are covering roughly the same distance but one is using significantly more fuel then you may be able to look at each driver’s behaviour to suggest a better practice for the less fuel efficient driver.

So what fleet management options are there?

Generally, you will have two choices when it comes to fleet management:

- Fleet management software: This allows you to keep fleet management “in house”. Fleet management software provides databases and other technology that will help you keep track of your vehicles and cut down on some of the administration associated with keeping a fleet of vehicles.

- Fleet management companies: Fleet management companies are designed to take away all of the hassles associated with fleet management: you are effectively out sourcing the management of your fleet to another company. They can offer a more comprehensive fleet management approach than fleet software alone: just examine exactly what is on offer carefully as there may be significant differences between companies.