Fleet
managers grapple with a wide range of issues that lead to sleepless nights. Not
only are their diverse operations exposed to outside risk, but they often have
to juggle the needs of machines as well as humans in a dynamic, changing
environment. We spoke to fleet managers about their most recent pain points –
and what they’re doing about them, and this is what they had to say.
Rising costs
While some fleet managers say their companies or industries have ways of
absorbing the rise in fuel costs, those who have strict cost-savings targets to
meet find that it is their biggest headache.
Daylene
Damons, fleet manager at the multi-national JTI, says incremental fuel-saving
through measures such as monitoring driving behaviour are no longer enough for
the targets she is chasing. After careful test runs, her company has decided to
move its fleet from petrol to diesel vehicles. They have proved to be much
lighter on fuel, and the total cost of diesel vehicles over their lifespan is
cheaper.
Shaun
de la Peyre, national fleet manager at Lancet Laboratories, agrees that vehicle
selection is key to keeping fuel consumption down. The trick is not to be
blinded by the purchase price, but to look at the overall costs, including fuel
consumption. This has helped him keep his 600-vehicle fleet’s average
consumption at about 7.1 litres per 100km.
Apart
from getting the cost-per-kilometre down, Damons finds she has to look closely
at cutting the number of kilometres by curbing the private or unnecessary use
of fleet vehicles. She is currently updating her company’s fleet policy –
that’s the easy part, she says. Turning the policy into practice is going to be
the hard part.
E-tolls
Two years ago e-tolls did not exist as a problem for fleet managers. However,
many fleet managers have become accustomed to the costs. But they do struggle
with faulty bills.
Damons
says the monthly cap of R450 per vehicle is sometimes exceeded, and Sanral’s
“pay now, argue later” principle in effect becomes a “pay now, write it off”
scenario for the fleet manager.
He
says e-tags, the electronic device which automatically logs the vehicle’s
passage through the toll-road gantries, sometimes don’t work. The vehicle is
still billed by the tolling system, but it loses the discount extended to e-tag
users, he says points out.
De
la Peyre says Lancet receives at least five bills per month in which the
registration had been misread by the gantries. He finds these “almost
impossible to resolve,” despite the fact that a colleague spends at least one
day a week at Sanral’s offices.
Mary-Ann
Calvert, fleet manager at Masslift Africa, experiences the same billing
problems, and has also found that sometimes vehicles disposed of – through sale
on the second-hand market are not recorded/updated on the e-tolls billing
system, and Masslift continues to be billed for the vehicles.
Accidents
A startling number of fleet managers mention an increase in their accident
rates as a rising challenge and mention deteriorating road conditions and
increasing potholes as one of the underlying causes.
“Pothole
damage is becoming more prevalent. That is a challenge for us here in Gauteng.
Sometimes it can be minor potholes, but the vehicles come back, you inspect
them and you realise that they’re damaged,” says Anesh Kassen, BMW group fleet
operations manager.
Calver
has had a similar experience. A year or two ago, their insurance service
provider reviewed their premiums downward because of their low claims ratio.
But in recent months she has had to process as many as seven claims. A number
of them were caused by potholes, she says. She believes a recent increase in
windscreen damage is also related to deteriorating roads.
De
la Peyre says potholes are “without a doubt” an increasing problem, especially
in outlying areas. Strictly no mag wheels on any of his fleet’s vehicles, he
says. Stock standard wheels help to minimise the repair bills.
Licensing,
registration and speeding fines
Kassen,
who runs a fleet of between 1 000 and 1 200 vehicles, says delays in the
licencing and registration of vehicles have recently emerged as a challenge. In
the past, the turnaround time was a day or two, but nowadays it can take
several days. Because licencing and registration is a municipal function, the
service levels vary from centre to centre, depending on where the vehicle has
to be registered.
The
post office strike has played havoc with the usual flow of speeding fines, says
De la Peyre. Even today, months after the strike, the service is erratic,
making the rerouting of fines to the drivers difficult.
Driver behaviour
Bad driver behaviour is a pain point as old as fleet management itself, but
could it be that the situation on South African roads has been particularly
tense of late? This is a question that Calvert has been asking herself after
some of her drivers had recently been involved in a couple of incidents.
Other
fleet managers report that driver behaviour is just as bad, or as good, as
always, but what has made a big difference to their work is the ability that
telematics have given them to monitor driver behaviour. Speeding, harsh braking
and excessive idling can now all be flagged through a system of exception
reporting, and can be taken up immediately with the offending driver.
It
is perhaps an indication of the success of telematics that Damons mentions
recent trouble she has had with a telematics service provider that took up to
three weeks to fix faulty units. Because her fleet management system can no
longer do without telematics, she has decided to move over to another service
provider.
De
la Peyre acknowledges the role of telematics in the management of driver
behaviour. Lancet was one of the pioneers of full telematics in South Africa.
The challenge for fleet managers, however, is how to deal with the huge amount
of data generated by such a system. He receives a helpful daily report from his
telematics service provider, but he admits that it may be flagging only the
most flagrant exceptions, and that many more abuses may be lying buried in the
data.
Card Fraud
Fuel card fraud is not at epidemic levels, say fleet managers, but it still
requires vigilance. De la Peyre has experienced garages deliberately ringing up
inflated totals.
Standard
Bank’s transaction authorisation system has helped, he says. It automatically
declines any transaction that falls outside certain parameters, such as filling
up more than the tank capacity, or filling up twice within a certain time
frame.
Contributed by: Dr
David Molapo, Head of Fleet Management at Standard Bank.
Article first appeared in Transport World Africa:
http://www.transportworldafrica.co.za/2015/06/25/six-key-fleet-management-issues/
