Manage utilisation to reduce fleet costs

Utilisation management provides immediate benefits by reducing a vehicle’s operating and lifecycle costs, but the real attreaction is the long-term benefits of rightsizing the fleet and improving risk management.

Initially, tracking systems were considered as the tool to find staff, but that capability and the associated reporting has expanded considerably. Utilisation management now includes detailed daily measurement of time, distance, hours of operation and driver behaviour.

With this information, a skilled manager will quickly identify unnecessary travel, inefficiencies, policy contraventions and unacceptable behaviour risk.

Resolution of these operating issues – using scheduling software and the review and application of policies – will certainly reduce time and distance travelled, improve efficiency and bring into the debate the rightsizing of the fleet, vehicle selection and, possibly, vehicle pooling.

The objective of rightsizing the fleet is to evaluate the reduction of vehicle quantities and, further, to select the right vehicles in terms of service support, capacity, fuel and maintenance costs, resale values and, ultimately, whole-life costs.

A significant reduction in costs can be achieved by coupling fleet policies with a vehicle-replacement policy. The vehicle-replacement policy is not a rigid statement to automatically dispose of vehicles, but a guide to planning and evaluating their replacement, to optimise usage, manage capital budgets and reduce fleet costs.

Utilisation management will ultimately enable you to right-size your fleet. The cost benefits of a smaller fleet, which achieves the same business requirements, are substantial. Suppliers able to provide vehicle tracking and utilisation management services can be found at www.fleetsolutions.co.za.