Blog

Need to know more about fleet management software features and how implementing fleet software can improve your fleet efficiency and increase your bottom line?

Here is a look at some of the key features of Fleetcheck, our award-winning, most recommended fleet management software in the UK:

Fuel Management and Cost Savings

Fuel is one of – if not the – largest expenses for most fleet managers. Fleet management software gives you detailed analysis and insights into how much fuel your drivers and vehicles are using.

This enables you to identify the vehicles using the most fuel or operating on the lowest MPG, so you can identify why that vehicle is costing more than others.

This often enables you to identify reckless driving behaviors, faults on vehicles, and other issues that could have potentially become a lot worse had you not identified them through excessive fuel consumption.

Equipment Management

Fleet management software is also used to keep track of machinery and equipment. Businesses with construction machinery and equipment, in particular, use fleet management software to keep track of their assets.

The software enables construction site managers to keep better track of where their equipment is, workers can send work orders and notify managers of defects in real-time, and it helps improve compliance and site health and safety.

Driver Management

On the admin side, fleet management software enables you to make sure your drivers are eligible to drive, Fleetcheck’s Policy Manager provides tools to manage fleet-related health and safety, you can call licence details, and know which driver is in each vehicle.

On the performance side, you’re able to monitor how your drivers are performing, set alerts to be notified of any reckless behaviours, and identify training needs.

Route Planning and Vehicle Tracking

Route planning plays a large role in almost all fleet operations, particularly for logistics companies. Fleetcheck uses telematics and GPS to provide real-time location and movement details for every vehicle in your fleet.

This enables you to plan more efficient routes, notify drivers of delays, and make other adjustments while they’re on the road. You can also use this data to analyse driver performance, improve security, and a number of other benefits.

Notifications and Alarms

As a fleet grows, it becomes increasingly challenging to keep on top of maintenance, driver maintenance, and other key dates and reminders.

Using Fleetcheck, you can set reminders and alerts so you’re notified of key dates and when something comes up that needs your attention. One of the main advantages of software is that it scales as your business does without the need to add more employee hours.

Improved Compliance

Compliance plays an important – but complex – role in fleet management. Using a robust fleet management system is the only way to be sure you’re staying 100% compliant with the various policies, O Licences, and industry accreditations.

Fleet managers are also able to roll out communications fleet-wide when necessary, and store documents electronically.

Analytics and Reporting

Fleet-related decisions can only be as good as the data a fleet manager has to work with. The way you can view and dynamically use fleet data using software is a gamechanger for fleet managers.

Being able to drill down on data to a granular level gives you the confidence to make better decisions. In addition to this, you can produce and share reports internally or externally with ease.

Related Questions

What Does a Fleet Manager Do?

A fleet manager also called a vehicle or transport manager is the person responsible for overseeing fleet operations. Their key responsibilities include (but are not limited to) recordkeeping, managing drivers, negotiating with suppliers, maintaining compliance, analysing data, and dealing with disputes.

Do You Need Fleet Management Software?

If you have a fleet of vehicles, which means more than one, then you will benefit from using fleet management software. Just read the benefits and features above to get a better understanding of how fleet management software will help improve your fleet operations.

How Much Does Fleet Management Software Cost?

FleetCheck fleet management system costs £6 per month per vehicle for our most popular ‘Professional’ plan. This works out at £720 per year for a fleet of 10 vehicles. You can get started, however, for just £2 per month per vehicle with FleetCheck Driver. You can see all our plans HERE

 

Fleet management plays an important role in logistics, as does fleet management software. Fleet management software helps to automate logistical management processes, save costs, identify ways to operate more efficiently, improve compliance, and much more.

What Is the Purpose of Fleet Management?

The purpose of fleet management is to oversee the performance of a fleet of vehicles and all the other fleet-related tasks.

The better managed a fleet is, the greater efficiency and productivity an organisation will see.

It depends on what kind of operations a company is involved in, but generally speaking, companies that implement a robust fleet management process see:

• A reduction in fuel costs
• Improved driver management
• Better asset utilization
• More efficient route planning
• Improved compliance
• Improved health and safety

What Do Logistics Companies Do?

Logistics companies are involved in planning, implementing, and moving goods and services. This can mean their own goods in a B2C format, or it can mean they manage the logistics for a number of other companies.

To carry out effective logistics, companies need to have an accurate way to track the goods being moved. As well as managing inventory, and monitoring all the costs involved in their operations.

Logistics and fleet management go hand-in-hand. To move or transport goods, there are always going to be vehicles involved. This may be trucks, lorries, vans, cars, even boats.

The next step is fleet management software. Fleet management software makes it possible to improve the efficiency of logistics at every stage. We’ll be taking a closer look at how software improves logistic operations throughout this article.

Why Is Fleet Management Important In Logistics?

A major element of logistics is transport or vehicles. Therefore, fleet management forms the backbone of the logistics industry and is invaluable to businesses operating in logistics.

Without proper fleet management, any business with a fleet of vehicles is not going to be able to operate efficiently.

As a fleet manager or business owner, you’ll know that a lack of efficiency means you’re losing money, putting added stress on your workforce, and straining customer relationships to mention just a few drawbacks.

Logistics refers to the overall process of managing how resources are used. Most often, it more accurately refers to how goods are being transported from a-to-b in the most time and cost-efficient manner.

Good fleet management enables a logistics business to save a great deal on transport and employee-related costs, as well as providing a whole host of other benefits.

Telematics and Logistics

Telematics is one of the technologies that play a core role in both fleet management and the logistics industry.

Telematics involves placing a device inside a vehicle to collect a wide range of information. This information is transmitted to a fleet management system, where it can be used to understand the status of the vehicle, its location, how it’s being driven, and many more data points.

Some of the ways telematics help fleet management and logistics include:

Route planning – Route planning is essential for logistics companies. For most companies, the quicker and more efficiently they can transport or deliver goods the more money they’ll see at their bottom line.

There are many challenges that truck drivers face when traveling from one point to another. Something as ‘simple’ as being able to notify a driver in real-time on how to avoid delays can have a huge impact on customer service.

Reduced fuel and maintenance costs – Saving fuel and maintenance costs are a by-product of more efficient route planning. In addition to this, there are other ways telematics data can save you money.

Telematics also provides data around how fast a vehicle is being driven, how erratically, and will even provide mpg usage. This enables you to identify risky or erratic driving behavior so you can do something about it.

Improved compliance and risk management – The importance of risk management when managing a fleet cannot be overstated. Not only can you avoid costly fines, but you’re also going to be able to reduce the number of accidents your drivers are involved in.

This has an obvious impact outside of just financial gain. Using telematics you can know about vehicle issues sooner, identify training needs for drivers,

Regarding vehicle maintenance, you can read about our walkaround daily driver check FleetCheck Driver here.

Who Needs Fleet Management?

Any business that has a fleet of vehicles can benefit from implementing fleet management software and best practices.

Just as any business that relies on logistics will also benefit from fleet management as they use vehicles to operate.

It really doesn’t matter how many vehicles you have in your fleet. There is even an argument for using fleet management best practices for one vehicle, and it certainly becomes beneficial the more vehicles you have.

Want to know how FleetCheck will save you money and improve your logistics operations? Contact a member of our sales team today and we can set you up with a free six-week trial. We’re confident you’ll not want to cancel after seeing the benefits for yourself, but if you do, no hard feelings.

Managing a fleet of vehicles is no easy task. Modern fleet management involves keeping on top of ever-changing compliance, vehicle maintenance, managing drivers, continually optimising performance, asset management, and much more.

Whether you have two vehicles or 2,000, the only way to effectively manage your fleet and identify data-backed insights into how you can improve performance is by using Fleet Management Software.

Obviously, fleet management software comes at a cost. But day-to-day tasks, compliance, and logistics aside, using the right fleet management software is going to save you money in the long run – and we can easily prove this to you if need be.

In this article, we’re looking at fleet management software pricing; how much it costs to manage a fleet of vehicles, how you can save money by using the right software, and how you can get started trying out our fleet management software for free:

How Much Does a Fleet Management System Cost?

FleetCheck fleet management system will cost £6 per month per vehicle for our most popular ‘Professional’ plan. This works out at £720 per year for a fleet of 10 vehicles.

You can get started for just £2 per month per vehicle with FleetCheck Driver. This is our driver’s defect reporting app and portal.

We also offer an Essential plan which is £4 per month per driver, and an Expert plan which is £8 per month per vehicle.

We’re happy to give you a live demo of our software if you want to see the software in action and ask any questions. We also offer a 14-day free trial for our Driver plan, and 30-day free trials for our other plans.

You can see a full list of our plans and all of the features included in each plan on our pricing page here.

How Does Fleet Management Software Reduce Costs?

Not only does fleet management software make managing a fleet a lot easier, and in some cases possible, there are several areas where it can help you reduce your fleet costs.

Some of the key areas are:

Reducing Fuel Costs

Fuel typically accounts for the majority of a fleet’s costs, yet it’s often the area where there is the most room to make savings with the help of good data.

Fleet management software is able to show you fuel usage down to a fine detail like the exact fuel economy each vehicle is getting and how optimal their journeys are.

This helps you identify the drivers and/or vehicles with the worst economy, plan more optimal journeys, address maintenance needs, and generally make changes across your fleet that can have a huge impact on your bottom line.

Reducing Vehicle Costs

Vehicle costs are usually not far behind fuel costs. For some organisations with poor fleet management processes, vehicle maintenance costs can easily spiral out of control.

FleetCheck Driver is our fully integrated, customisable vehicle walkaround app that drivers can use to quickly and thoroughly perform their daily checks and send the information directly to FleetCheck.

You can also set key dates for service reminders, address maintenance issues before they escalate, closely monitor costs, and more.

Huge Time Savings

One of the benefits every fleet manager notices the moment they switch from spreadsheets or some other manual process to fleet management software is how much manual work it saves.

It becomes almost impossible to accurately maintain driver or vehicle details as a fleet grows. Not to mention that without GPS, you can never know where a vehicle is and how it’s performing in real-time.

In addition to this, you can store and recall employee details, driver’s license information, vehicle information, compliance documents, and more in an instant when saved electronically.

Reduced Accidents and Lower Insurance

Fleet management software has been proven to help fleet managers reduce road accidents and improve driver safety.

This is primarily due to being able to identify ‘high-risk’ driver behaviors and take action before they’re involved in an accident. As well as identifying vehicle maintenance issues before they become more serious.

If you speak with your insurance provider, you may also be able to have your premium reduced due to having GPS, dash cams, and other technology that satisfies them that your drivers are better equipped.

Want to know more about how FleetCheck can reduce your fleet costs?

We’ve published a number of case studies here from various companies detailing how FleetCheck has helped save them money.

Try Our Fleet Management Software Free

If you’re on the fence about whether or not FleetCheck is the right fit for your fleet – and we’re sure it is – then you can schedule a time for us to give you a demo, or we’ll set you up with a free trial.

Our demonstrations typically last around 30 minutes. We’ll take you through all the features of our software and show you first-hand how FleetCheck will help improve your fleet management.

If you want to try out FleetCheck for yourselves, we can set you up with a free six-week trial. We’re confident you’ll not want to cancel after seeing the benefits for yourself, but if you do, no hard feelings.

Fleet asset management software plays an integral role in enabling fleet managers to better manage their vehicles and other assets.

In this article, we’re taking a closer look at why fleet asset management is so important, and some of the key benefits this software offers fleet managers:

What is Fleet Asset Management?

Fleet management is a form of asset management. In strict accounting teams, vehicles that are purchased for long-term use are assets. As are vehicles that are financed, if they have a value greater than the balanced owed.

However, all vehicles are considered assets to most businesses in the sense that they provide a crucial role to the business, there are costs involved, and they require careful management.

Asset management is the process of procuring, maintaining, monitoring, and improving the efficiency of a business’s assets.

For a fleet manager, this means accurately measuring the performance of vehicles and other fleet-related assets to maximise their efficiency and improve ROIs.

Benefits of Fleet Asset Management Software

Here is a look at 6 of the key benefits of using fleet asset management software for organizations of all sizes:

Detailed Asset Cost Analysis

Having complete visibility and knowing the true cost of operating your fleet, maintaining your assets, and the value of your assets helps fleet managers make better data-driven decisions.

From having a detailed understanding of your vehicle maintenance costs and fuel consumption to depreciation and netbook values, fleet asset management software provides detailed asset cost analysis.

This level of detail gives fleet managers and other financial analysts a better picture of an organisation’s final health. As well as enabling decision-makers to gain data-driven insights in ways they can further cut costs.

Real-Time Asset Tracking

One of the main advantages of integrating fleet management software is the ability to track your assets in real-time.

This helps fleet managers identify potential problems – and solutions – quickly and helps make better data-backed decisions.

You can also implement changes or run ‘what-if’ scenarios and look at what the impact of those decisions will be.

In addition to this, asset management software enables you to reduce paperwork and manual tasks. You can upload asset details in PDFs and other document formats, and call these documents electronically.

Cost Savings

Cutting costs is at the heart of what a fleet manager does. Using asset management software makes finding ways to save costs associated with assets a lot easier to identify.

Seeing all of your operating costs, asset values, and depreciation costs in one place gives you greater visibility. Along with tracking asset reliability and durability, far-future forecasting, and much more.

Asset management software like FleetCheck enables you to set KPIs that are important to your business. Giving you a bespoke solution to finding areas where you can cut asset-related costs.

Eliminate Spreadsheets

A lot of fleet managers are still using spreadsheets to manage their assets. This comes with some serious limitations, an increased risk of human error, lacks security and is more time-consuming than using software.

Spreadsheets are an outdated way of tracking and managing fleet assets. If you’re still using spreadsheets, please call us today to arrange a demo of our software and we can guarantee you’ll see the benefit of moving to our FleetCheck fleet management software.

Asset Inspection App

We’ve developed a driver walkaround checking app that helps reduce paperwork and facilitates a more robust and reliable way for fleet managers to manage their biggest assets, vehicles.

You can create your own custom checksheets, and drivers can perform their daily checks and send the information back to FleetCheck via remote data.

This helps create a DVSA compliant robust audit trail while saving a lot of time on manual tasks. Multiply this by the number of vehicles in your fleet, then by the number of days using the app and you’ll see how quickly the number of hours saved grows.

Better Equipment Management

If you’re in the construction industry, you’ll know how difficult it can be to keep track of your machinery, plant, and equipment.

By using the Allocation feature within FleetCheck, you can trace where all of your equipment is and perform inventory checks.

Asset management software will also ensure all of your equipment is compliant, keep a record of where machinery has been used, any defects reported, maintenance, and anything else relevant to the item.

The benefits of fleet management far outweigh the cost and resources required to create and implement robust and effective fleet management processes.

In this article, we’re going to explore the benefits of fleet management, and how the right software will help you improve your fleet processes in more detail:

What Is Fleet Management?

Any company that uses commercial vehicles to carry out its operations and has more than one vehicle has a fleet.

With a fleet of vehicles comes a number of high-impact tasks that affect how efficiently a business operates. The better managed those tasks are, the better a fleet will perform.

That’s fleet management 101.

Fleet managers are tasked with overseeing fleet management. Some of their key responsibilities are; monitoring and reducing fuel consumption, keeping up to date with compliance, driver management, and vehicle maintenance to name just a few.

Using the right fleet management software incorporates every aspect of managing a fleet and streamlines the process end-to-end.

Benefits of Fleet Management

Here is a look at 7 of the key benefits of fleet management and how you can use fleet management software to optimise your performance:

Driver Management

Driver management covers a wide range of practical and corporate responsibilities. With our integrated Licence Checking solution, you can keep your driver details up to date and set flags or reminders when key information is needed.

You will also have a better view of collision, penalty, and incident management, can pull up a driver’s history, add notes about driver health and training, and much more.

You can also identify ‘high risk’ behaviours by setting thresholds that will identify certain driver behaviours through the use of Telematics. This can help save fuel, other maintenance costs, and more importantly, reduce the risk of accidents.

Cost Savings

One of the biggest challenges for fleet managers is keeping costs down. This becomes more difficult the larger a fleet, and without property fleet management you will never know how effective your cost-saving efforts are.

Using fleet management software is the most effective way you can reduce costs, and measure the impact of changes you implement.

Two of the main cost-saving areas are fuel and vehicle maintenance. Fuel makes up the bulk of operational costs for most fleets. FleetCheck enables you to monitor exactly how much fuel your drivers are using, and how efficiently they’re driving.

The same applies to vehicle maintenance costs. Drivers can use the FleetCheck Driver app to perform maintenance checks and alert you of maintenance issues early on, and you’ll get a reminder when maintenance is due.

Improved Compliance

Fleet compliance is an essential and continuous process that is always changing as new regulatory requirements come in.

Without a robust system in place, a diminishing culture of compliance can start to take effect, and this can be disastrous to a fleet and an organisation.

It’s imperative that fleet managers are aware of changes to legislation, and communications are rolled out fleet-wide when necessary.

Automate Vehicle Maintenance

Vehicle maintenance accounts for a large portion of a fleet’s costs. One of the main benefits of fleet management is being able to get a better handle on maintenance and reduce long-term spend.

We’ve developed a walkaround checking app that enables drivers to perform their daily vehicle checks and communicate their findings remotely.

This means fleet managers are alerted in real-time of any upcoming or urgent maintenance issues they need to be aware of. This paperless form of driver checks saves money, time, and improves driver safety.

Health and Safety

The HSE estimates that around a third of all road traffic accidents involve someone who is working at the time.

Unfortunately, having a driver involved in an accident is an occupational hazard of managing a fleet of vehicles. However, there is a lot you can do to reduce the risk of accidents and improve your drivers’ health and safety through effective fleet management.

You can keep your driver’s records up to date, be made aware of any health issues, monitor their driving hours and behaviours, identify ‘high-risk’ drivers and training needs, and more.

Analytics and Reporting

Having access to detailed analytics and reporting helps fleet managers see exactly how their fleet is performing against KPIs at a glance and enables them to make data-driven decisions.

Using FleetCheck, you can set KPIs around any metrics that are important to you and measure the impact of any changes you make. You’ll also have complete visibility into every aspect of your operations.

Eliminate Spreadsheets

It’s surprising how many large fleets still manage their fleets using spreadsheets. We know, however, that no matter how many vehicles you’re managing, the benefits of fleet management software outweigh the use of spreadsheets.

This isn’t just because spreadsheets are limited in functionality. They’re also less secure, there is an increased risk of human error, and they’re more time-consuming.

As we’ve covered above, the cost savings through using fleet management software are reason enough to implement the software.

Combined with the added benefits of tighter compliance, increased driver safety, and the other points we’ve covered, it’s an easy decision for fleet managers once they’ve seen a demo of what FleetCheck can do for their business.

Vehicle Fleet Optimisation is a hard-to-navigate topic, but one that you need to be aware of if you run a fleet.

The business landscape has changed dramatically over the last year meaning that it is more important than ever to understand how you can optimise your fleet and get it running as efficiently as possible.

In terms of optimising a fleet, you need to evaluate and understand it first, this will allow you to compare and appreciate what changes you will benefit from. With the fleet data, you have from before the pandemic and the fleet data you have now, as restrictions are easing, you should be able to easily draw comparisons, making you fully aware of the differences allowing you to understand the changes to make.

The culture within which businesses with fleets operate is most definitely changing. You need to ensure that the changes mirror your company requirements; optimisation is something that all businesses can benefit from looking at. Once you have made this evaluation you will be able to go through the steps below and deduce which are going to be the most valuable to you and your fleet.

Early Terminations.
Handing back a vehicle early can incur recharges, and these recharges can be expensive. In some cases, it can be more beneficial to keep a vehicle for the duration of its lease but have it ‘off-road.’ To mitigate against increased costs, it is best to get any vehicle inspected before ‘hand back’ and deal with any cosmetic repairs using a SMART repair technique.

Pool Mileage.
If you have a fleet in which vehicles are often doing various journey lengths it may be worth a conversation with your lease provider as to whether pool mileage is something they can offer you. By pooling your mileage across all your vehicles you won’t incur penalties if one vehicle does slightly more miles and others do slightly less as your allowed mileage is spread across all vehicles.

Renegotiation.
If your estimated milage is lower than your contract you can contact your leasing company to renegotiate your costs based on the lower estimated milage, which may result in a reduction in monthly payments. It is important to note that due to the changed residual value, costs reduction requests can be rejected. By reviewing your policy and discovering that early termination is not an option you may need to request that your contracted miles are reduced.

Legal and Taxation Responsibilities.
Due to the drastic and unforeseen change in the business world that is a direct result of the Covid-19 pandemic, company car drivers are not using their cars in the same way. As a result of this, a lot of people are electing to operate their own vehicles for business. Using a personal vehicle for work means you are eligible to receive Approved Mileage Allowance. A prominent growing trend that can be seen is that a lot of companies are looking to migrate from company cars to grey fleets.

Damage Costs.
Damage costs are on the rise and are becoming an increasing problem. Companies must have a policy in place to follow and enforce when a vehicle gets damaged. This policy should dictate as to when drivers take ownership of the vehicle they are driving and if they are going to be held personally responsible for any damages. When handing a vehicle back to a leasing company you must ensure that all damage is evidenced and documented either by the driver, company or an independent examiner. The BVLRA Code of Conduct is an excellent resource to use when learning about returning leased vehicles and the fair ‘wear and tear’ ruling. It is highly recommended that any vehicle is fully valeted upon its return. Fees can reach over £1,000, which can often be reduced by ensuring the car is clean and devoid of damage.

Disposal.
Be aware, disposing of vehicles on mass can be very costly. It would be good to understand the market and the different mediums you can use to dispose of vehicles e.g., auctions, webuyanycar.com and Auto Trader. If you are disposing of a vehicle you need to make sure that you do not have any outstanding credit on it.

Fleet Redeployment.
Redeploying vehicles within your fleet is usually going to be the better option than an early return. It is vital to ensure that all vehicles are legal and road-worthy on return from their previous drivers and as they are redeployed. Vehicles can deteriorate a lot of wear and tear if they are parked for extended periods. It is important to ensure that they undertake a thorough inspection close to them being driven again.

Replacement Cycles, and Choice Lists.
Warranties are getting longer, it is now a popular possibility to extended warranties from manufactures as well as manufacturers offering longer warranties to start with. If you are looking to replace your vehicles on a 3-year cycle and have a low mileage fleet, then a 4–5-year cycle is a very viable option and can be very cost-effective. Another option may be to finance vehicles over a longer period, by doing this you can get more vehicles and use each less, keeping a high rotation level. This can be a good way to balance costs against use.

 

The government recently announced a new super deduction tax relief, coming into force this month, April 2021. This tax deduction could cut companies’ tax bills by 25 pence for every pound they invest in new equipment. This would mean reduced taxable profits by 130% of their cost. A key point to be aware of is that the relief is uncapped, this is unheard of and how companies with old, tired fleets can truly benefit. It is also key to know that the type of funding you use to acquire vehicles and equipment, must be where you obtain outright ownership at the end of the finance period.

The government has decided to encourage businesses to invest in infrastructure to support the country’s economic recovery and lead the movement towards lower polluting vehicles. If you understand super deduction you will not only benefit from tax relief, but many other advantages that can be gained by replacing an ageing fleet.

With a new fleet and new equipment, your fleet performance will improve with improved fuel consumption, reduced maintenance costs and less Co2 emissions. Reducing Co2 is something that all businesses need to look at as Clean Air Zones, Low Emission Zones and Ultra-Low Emissions Zones become more prominent. It is important that company vehicles can enter and navigate freely through these zones, so they do not lose out on business, or have to pay fines for driving in an area that has a charge. New vehicles will also be more reliable, so you are not having to waste time and money on breakdowns and hours in garages.

Company image is an area that is not hugely talked about, but new, up to date, low emission vehicles that are more sustainable will lead to an enhanced company image and help engage your drivers. With concerns for the environment at record highs (YouGov), sustainability is a large factor that people will consider when looking to employ someone or when recommending your service to friends and family.

It is clear to see that this new relief provides an opportunity for many businesses. The next two years will be very critical for all fleets, especially those who are looking to renew their equipment. Those willing to invest in super deduction could benefit from a large reduction in corporation tax as well as vast savings in the long term; even seeing benefits within a couple of months of new vehicles being used.

However great all the benefits sound it is important to be aware of all the criteria; for example, you cannot use the super deduction to buy used equipment, it must be brand new. Therefore we do recommend seeking professional help and guidance before you commit to high levels of expenditure, to ensure that the decisions you are making are beneficial to your business.

A walkaround check is more than a ‘tick-box’ exercise as it ensures your vehicle is fit for the road.

Increasingly at FleetCheck, we have been seeing evidence that drivers are treating essential walkaround checks on their company vehicles as a “tick box” exercise.

These inspections should be carried out on a daily basis ideally, and so it is perhaps inevitable that some degree of fatigue sets in. Drivers may just go through the motions rather than carry out a genuine inspection and do so for very human reasons – perhaps they are late to a meeting or the weather is poor.

However, it is the responsibility of employers to ensure that these checks are being done, especially if there is evidence that drivers’ attention is drifting over time.

A typical giveaway is if a vehicle is taken in for a service and a tyre tread depth is reported to be below the legal limit or the standard depth used for replacement on the fleet, even though the driver’s recent checks recorded them as OK. This is a very clear flag that the driver concerned isn’t taking their checks seriously or doesn’t understand how to carry them out properly. It is the kind of thing that may well be picked up by the authorities in the event of an accident and subsequent investigation.

How to solve the problem? A simple but effective measure is to make it a part of your company risk management policy to watch a driver conduct a check every year or six months, effectively auditing their walkaround skills.

For example, one of the issues we have identified is that, if you ask drivers to do a walkaround check, it is not uncommon to find that some don’t know how to open the bonnet and check essential fluid levels. Watching the employee in action is a good way of underlining the fact that you take this issue very seriously. Certainly, it is a simple way of addressing the fatigue that we are seeing on an anecdotal basis.

FleetCheck launched FleetCheck Driver walkaround check app for fleet vehicles in 2018 which creates the means to schedule, carry out, confirm, follow-up and audit all kinds of inspections for cars, HGVs, vans, buses and coaches from daily walkarounds to formal weekly or monthly checks.

 

Running a fleet – if not done properly – can be a legal minefield, and we can’t stress enough how vital it is that you understand what’s expected of you/your company/your drivers and that all know what to do in order to fulfil those obligations.

These days so much focus is channelled into reducing fleet costs – and quite rightly so.  For most companies the fleet features in the top 3 most costly assets, so cost control is vital.  However, in the absence of a robust framework of legal compliance, your money-saving efforts are worth nothing.  A single incident leading to prosecution could see your hard work come tumbling down around you.

It’s all about balance.  We actively encourage you to seek out cost-saving initiatives, but never at the expense of legal compliance.

The importance of compliance

It has been estimated that up to a third of all road traffic accidents involve somebody who was at work at the time.  This could account for over 20 fatalities and 250 serious injuries every week.

Every one of these results in a police investigation, and ultimately the police will be looking for the root cause of the accident.  In other words, in the event of one of your drivers being involved in an accident like this, the police will need to be satisfied that the driver was not at fault.  Otherwise, prosecution could follow. And consider this: that prosecution may not be to the driver, it could be you.

A company running a fleet has a duty of care towards its drivers and all other road users and a legal requirement to manage any risks involved in their working activities.  And if found in breach of these obligations, the company – and ultimately its directors – are at a very real risk of prosecution and, in extreme cases, imprisonment.

The elements of a compliant fleet

Becoming (and remaining) compliant when running a fleet can be broken down into four key areas: vehicle, driver, journey and management.

The vehicle
Every vehicle used on company business must be:

• Fit for the purpose for which is it being used
• Correctly maintained to a safe condition
• Regularly inspected for defects and damage
• Adequately equipped with properly fitted/maintained safety provisions

The driver
Staff members driving for your company (even occasionally) must be:

• Competent and capable of driving in a way that is safe for them and other people
• Hold the appropriate licence for the vehicle they drive and be properly trained
• Aware of the minimum standards of driving and vehicle use expected by the company
• Adequately fit and healthy to drive safely and not put themselves or others at risk

The journey
Journeys need structure in order to safeguard the drivers and minimise risk.

• Routes need to be planned in a way that maximises safety and helps drivers avoid hazards
• Work schedules must be realistic
• Expectations of the drivers in terms of their hours/rest breaks must be reasonable
• Consideration needs to be given in the event of adverse weather conditions

The management
This is the crucial framework that supports the above three elements, and is divided into four areas:

• Policy: your company ‘rules and regulations’ – documented, if you employ 5 or more people
• Responsibility: understanding of who does what
• Systems: the routines, tasks and documentation processes that need to be carried out
• Monitoring: the ongoing evaluation of all the above

Assessing your risk

Risk assessments for any work-related driving activity should follow the same principles as risk assessments for any other work activity.  Some would argue that driving-related risk assessments are even more essential than other workplace risk assessments, simply because of the magnitude of the risks involved on the road.

Risk assessments are a common cause of concern for many companies.  Often viewed as overly complex, time-consuming and even unnecessary, they are a ‘missing link’ in many organisations.  A worrying state of affairs, when you consider the sheer scale of risk associated with fleet management.

Risk assessments for fleet activity are clearly not unnecessary, but nor do they have to be overly complex or time-consuming.  With the right level of understanding and a common-sense approach, they can quite easily form a straightforward and routine part of your fleet management culture.  Think about it like this:

• A risk assessment could be defined as a careful look at what at-work activities can cause harm to people
• It helps you weigh up whether you have done enough (or need to do more) to prevent harm or injury
• It doesn’t have to be over-complicated or technical
• It helps you to collate your findings and make sure they’re reviewed and revised when necessary
• It should be carried out by a person who has competency and practical knowledge of the task in question
• For most smaller businesses, the hazards are easy to pinpoint
• The ultimate aim of risk assessments is to make the risk of at-work injury or fatality as low as possible

Achieving compliance

Helping companies to run fleets that are legally compliant is the mainstay of FleetCheck’s existence. We know that even in today’s culture of heightened legal awareness, most companies remain concerned to some degree about the strength of their risk management strategy.  Some lack the expertise and/or understanding, others simply run out of time to create and implement effective policies, and almost all are nervous about how they would respond should the worst happen and they were faced with an investigation following a road accident.

FleetCheck dramatically reduces the scale of these concerns, by giving companies a complete framework to underpin their legal responsibilities surrounding the fleet. Clearly FleetCheck cannot remove the burden completely – each company is ultimately responsible for their compliance – but the tools, processes and guidance provided by FleetCheck ensure you have everything you need to create, implement and maintain a robust fleet risk management system.

 

 

[maxbutton id=”1″ ]