Who's Using FleetCommander and Why?

A look at benefits across different markets

The very first fleet manager that used FleetCommander to streamline fleet operations was in a Fortune 10 company in the commercial market space. That customer expanded the use of the fleet and motor pool management software from a single location in New Orleans to fifteen sites throughout the United States. FleetCommander use has since spread to a variety of different segments of the fleet population ranging in size, geographic locations, fleet composition and market segment. Today, FleetCommander is used in four primary fleet markets, including: education, government, commercial, and utilities.

The most significant benefits that FleetCommander brings to any type of fleet manager are metrics and policy enforcement. Fleet managers must have metrics that are easy to collect and easy to interpret. While different fleet market segments collect and emphasize different fleet metrics, the underlying principle that fleets are ultimately managed by accurate metrics is certain. And, all fleet managers must enforce policies consistently and efficiently. This article expands on how FleetCommander is used in different market segments to better manage the fleet through metrics and policy enforcement.

FleetCommander Use in Educational Markets

Background - Universities have challenges that are unique to fleet. They typically have a motor pool that is used by faculty, staff, and students. A ratio of drivers to vehicles may be more than 100:1. And, the driver population can often be problematic. Use of vehicles by students must be managed more closely than faculty and staff use due to the track record of abuse. And, a student population turns over on average at least every four years. Managing the driver population and enforcing fleet policies for a driving community that changes frequently is typically a challenge.

How FleetCommander Solves the Problem – Thirty eight percent (38%) of FleetCommander customers are in the educational market space. University fleet environments that are not using modern tools to manage their fleet are often a very chaotic place. FleetCommander streamlines operations for university fleet managers by effortlessly capturing metrics and by automating time-consuming tasks such as policy enforcement and on-line vehicle requests. Paper can be virtually eliminated. FleetCommander accommodates the revolving student population via the on-line registration function. That is, new fleet drivers register on-line to use university vehicles. The fleet manager then grants the appropriate access privileges to the driver and establishes which policies are enforced for the new driver. Next, FleetCommander handles the on-line vehicle requests. Data is validated and policies are automatically enforced before the request even gets to the fleet dispatcher. Then, on the day of the vehicle pick-up, a variety of tools, including automatically-updating dashboards, kiosks, or even automated key control devices, are used to rapidly pick-up and return vehicles. Throughout each step of these processes, metrics are captured to facilitate billing and charge backs with the click of a mouse.

FleetCommander assists universities in a variety of other ways, including automatic transfer of data to and from other automated systems, account validation prior to vehicle assignment, checking of driver's license expiration dates, collecting mileage for permanently assigned vehicles, automatic preventive maintenance reminders, reporting, and more.

FleetCommander Use in Government Markets

Background - Government agencies using FleetCommander vary greatly. A common thread across state, county, and city fleets using FleetCommander is the need for metrics, primarily to support charge-backs and to justify the needs for keeping a certain level of vehicle inventory. Charge-backs are for maintenance activities and vehicle use. Government agencies use FleetCommander to manage pooled vehicles as well as permanently assigned vehicles.

How FleetCommander Solves the Problem – Twenty four percent (24%) of FleetCommander customers are in the government market space. Government fleets are subject to frequent budget scrutiny. It is therefore commonplace for FleetCommander to be used as a tool to monitor and manage costs associated with fleet vehicles. FleetCommander helps in this effort by capturing metrics about vehicle usage and ultimately reporting metrics back to departments or accounts that are responsible for the charges. Each time a pool vehicle is used, for example, the organization's billing algorithm is used to generate a charge for use of that vehicle. Those charges are automatically calculated and can be exported to the organization's billing system. In addition to capturing vehicle use charges, other charges such as late fees, abuse fees, maintenance charges, and fuel charges can all be stored for each vehicle and ultimately attributed back to an individual, department, or account. Functions such as the fuel file import function allow for charges to be easily accumulated for a vehicle.

Commercial

Background - Nineteen percent (19%) of FleetCommander customers are in the commercial sector. Generally speaking, the commercial sector is focused on streamlining operations and realizing a significant return on investment on technology assets.

How FleetCommander Solves the Problem – FleetCommander is used to manage permanently assigned vehicles as well as pooled vehicles for commercial customers. Operations related to collecting mileage and managing maintenance for permanently assigned vehicles are greatly streamlined using FleetCommander. Motor Pool operations are streamlined via use of the on-line request and approval processes.

The commercial sector represents the segment of the FleetCommander user community that has capitalized the most on customization of the application and implementation of electronic interfaces to external computers systems containing accounting, human resources, and risk management data. In addition, FleetCommander has been used in the commercial sector to meet goals for corporate projects such as a paper-reduction initiative.

Utilities

Background - Fourteen percent of FleetCommander users are in the utility market space. Utility companies manage a variety of vehicles ranging from sedans to specialize equipment. Passenger vehicles are managed in much the same way that commercial and government entities work. Use of specialized equipment such as cherry pickers and cranes are tightly managed due to the cost of the vehicles and the need to charge-back to specific jobs.

How FleetCommander Solves the Problem – FleetCommander has a big impact on the ability to manage costs in the utility market space. Due to the ability to set up many fleet sites in FleetCommander and provide utility workers with on-line access to reserve specialized equipment at remote sites, sharing of this expensive equipment across sites can occur efficiently. For example, rather than maintain a $450,000 piece of equipment at each of fifteen sites throughout one state, a single piece of equipment can be centrally located and used by site staff on an as-needed basis. Fleet utilization statistics clearly identify how often vehicles are being used and, just as importantly, how often there are conflicts that result in the lack of a vehicle when needed. The result can be very significant in terms of reducing the inventory of specialized equipment.

Another value of FleetCommander in the utility market space is the ability to accurately generate reports for billing. Organizations with unique reporting requirements to FEMA or other agencies can use FleetCommander reports to ensure that the fleet is compensated for billable jobs.

Summary

FleetCommander is highly configurable. The above descriptions represent a generalization of only a very small subset of the benefits of FleetCommander in four separate markets. Your site administrator can easily change the way that FleetCommander is setup and used in your environment. Configuration changes allow the application to look different, enforce different rules, and even restrict access to functions based upon user permissions. Call us today to see how FleetCommander can optimize the use of your staff and your vehicles.

Agile Access Control, Inc.
(408) 213-9555 x 555
www.AgileFleet.com