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Is it good enough to know how many vehicle requests were cancelled yesterday?  Most of us would vote “No”.  In fact, there is value in knowing the specific reason that each reservation is cancelled if you really want to optimize the use of your fleet.  Consider how just these different types of cancellations impact your fleet:

1.  The request was cancelled after the driver failed to pick up the vehicle as scheduled
2.  The trip was cancelled and… the driver told us about it in advance
3.  The trip was cancelled due to a lack of adequate fleet privileges of the driver
4.  The trip was cancelled because there were no appropriate vehicles available

A review of fleet's utilization after-the-fact may reveal that utilization rates are artificially low due to cancellations. If, for example, we reserve 100% of the vehicles but only 80% of the drivers pickup the vehicles, we have a 20% discrepancy between the planned activity and the actual activity. Will your fleet and motor pool management software report this accurately?

Being able to document the reason a motor pool trip was cancelled provides the data you need to really analyze fleet utilization in the future.

Looking deeper at each of these cancellation reasons reveals why each type of cancellation must be tracked separately.

No-Shows
When a driver fails to show up to use a motor pool vehicle, the driver has still consumed the resource and prevented others from using it.  No-shows indicate an abuse of fleet resources.  Your fleet system should delineate no-shows. 

And, your fleet system should alert you as soon as a vehicle is late being picked up so that you can mitigate the impact. 

Your fleet policy document should describe the rules regarding no-shows.

Cancelled Trips with Proper Notifcation
Cancelled trips are a fact of life.  If a driver notifies the fleet staff that the trip is cancelled in advance, the allocated vehicle[s] can be used by other personnel.  It is valuable to collect the reason that a trip was cancelled; however, this typically is not a big impact to fleet resources.

Some fleet systems allow users to cancel vehicle requests on-line.

Providing fleet users with an easy way to cancel their own vehicle requests in advance of the trip encourages drivers to notify the fleet staff if they no longer need a vehicle.

Cancelled Trips Due to Lack of Fleet Privileges
If drivers attempt to pickup a vehicle but are turned away due to lack of proper credentials, they have in effect consumed a resources that you could have lent out to someone else.  Your fleet system should track this type of cancellation separate from other types. 

If drivers are turned away due to lack of credentials, they have still consumed a resource.

Some fleet systems notify the driver at the time of the request if any of the following are present in the driver's on-line user profile:  the driver's license number missing; the driver's license is expired; the driver's license has not previously been validated by fleet staff; or the driver's license is suspended. 

If drivers are made aware at the time they reserve vehicles that their information is not current, they can resolve the issues before showing up to pick up the keys or they can simply not submit a request.

Not Enough Vehicles
Now this is the metric to capture!  This number shows you the shortcomings in your fleet.  Perhaps you can send people to a local rental facility.  But this is the important number to manage.  If you never turn people away for lack of vehicles, you may have too many vehicles.  If you routinely send five people each day to the local rental car agency, you may be able to cost justify additional vehicles.

Summary

It is important to be able to track why reservations were cancelled. Some cancellations impact your fleet. Other cancellations do not. Make sure your fleet and motor pool management software is able to collect and report at the level you require.

Your automation solution should be flexible. A screen used by the System Administrator to define the different types of cancellation reasons is shown. Note that the “Turned Down” column indicates those types of cancellations that the Administrator desires to differentiate because they were an indication that there was a lack of vehicles. This is very valuable for reporting.

When you have the right data, reports such the Motor Pool Utilization Report generated by FleetCommander can quickly show you whether or not you have an issue with a lack of vehicles.

Other reports can help you keep a close eye on cancellations. The sample below provides insight into cancellation details.

Again, it's important to know why vehicle requests are cancelled.  Track cancellations. Understand why vehicle requests are cancelled. It's rather straightforward... if you understand the importance of this metric and you have the right tools.

Article contributed by Ed Smith.  (408) 213-9555 x501.
www.AgileFleet.com