Fleet Utilization Statistics

What's Behind the Numbers is What Really Matters!

Optimizing the use of your fleet to get maximized utilization is one of the easiest ways to lower costs in a fleet.  Yet many fleet managers lack the tools to effectively gauge utilization.  While some lack the tools, others fail to understand the nuances of how utilization metrics are calculated and how they should be used.  Are they clearly seeing the right utilization metrics?

A fleet manager recently looked at utilization rates for a county-run fleet and found that average utilization rates were only 65% and peak utilization rates never exceeded 90%.  "Pick two cars and let's get rid of 'em", he told the pool dispatcher.  After another month, utilization rates remained relatively unchanged.  "Pick two more cars and let's get rid of 'em", he said again.  "But we're turning people away from our pool because we don't have enough cars", responded the dispatcher.  How could that be?  In order to manage fleet utilization, you must really understand what the utilization numbers are telling you.  The correct utilization statistics would have shown the fleet manager that "car" utilization rates were hitting 100% while across all types of vehicles in the fleet utilization rates were only at 65%.

Your fleet utilization statistics should serve the needs of your organization.  Your fleet utilization statistics should:

1. Be timely and repeatable

2. Be accurate

3. Be able to reflect utilization for each type of vehicle

4. Be able to reflect utilization for each site or location or department

5. Be able to show utilization rates based on Usage Type, or the way vehicles are used

6. Look at average and peak utilization

Let's look at each of these characteristics of utilization metrics.  Utilization metrics must:

Be timely & repeatable

• Timely – Utilization statistics should be able to be generated with a click of a mouse or an automatic display on a dashboard.

• Utilization statistics that show a trend are valuable.  To show good trend data, you need to have a repeatable way of measuring utilization. Your method for calculating utilization must be repeatable.

Be accurate

• If data is not accurate, people will discount it.  For example, your fleet utilization statistics should reflect:

  • Holidays

  • Weekends

  • Vehicles in Maintenance (Preventive Maintenance and Repairs)

  • Vehicles that were removed from the fleet

  • Vehicles that entered the fleet during the reporting period

Be able to reflect utilization for each type of vehicle

• Scrutinize utilization for each type of vehicle… not just the entire fleet

Be able to reflect utilization for each site or location or department

• Looking at the fleet as a whole has limited value

• Scrutinize utilization  based on each site or location individually

Be able to show utilization rates based on Usage Type, or the way vehicles are used

• This is one of the most powerful utilization parameters introduced to fleet in recent years

• Usage Type lets you view utilization by how a vehicle is being used

• Examples include:

  • Daily Motor Pool – Track the percentage of vehicles used each day

  • Permanent Assignment – Track utilization by miles per month

  • Courtesy Fleet – Track how often vehicles are used for purposes such as temporarily replacing vehicles that are in for maintenance.

Look at average and peak utilization

• Average utilization is good… Peak utilization is best

• Rental Car companies can be your overflow lot to tackle peak utilization.

One of the most innovative ways to see utilization metrics that demonstrate each of these characteristics is to use software such as Agile's FleetCommander.  FleetCommander uses automatically updating dashboards to present valuable data to fleet administrators.

The Fleet Dashboard automatically shows utilization hour-by-hour

Agile's FleetCommander Fleet Dashboard can be filtered to look at specific segments of the fleet (e.g. by type or location or other parameters).  So, fleet managers can see exactly the utilization metrics they need to manage the fleet.

To learn more about the Fleet Dashboard, the Motor Pool Utilization Report, and other tools used to manage fleet utilization, contact the staff at www.AgileFleet.com by calling (408) 213-9555.