The Challenges of Today’s Fleet Management

21st June 2013

  

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In the not too distant past, fleet management concerns were about the nuts and bolts around maintenance. While those issues are still relevant today, there are now more ‘advanced technological’ issues to address. Against this backdrop Creamer Media and Standard Bank recently co-hosted a Fleet Management Forum at the Melrose Arch Hotel in Johannesburg, which was attended by a selection of fleet management professionals.

Kenneth Creamer, CEO at Creamer Media, welcomed all to the forum, while Guy Lundy from Future Insight Consulting was tasked with the facilitation. The forum was established in order to obtain industry feedback on the challenges facing today’s fleet manager/operator and how these can be addressed. The main issues for debate surfaced as: real time technologies and industry trends including e-tolling; rising fuel and input costs; carbon emissions; driver safety and advancing technology.

Real Time Technologies and Industry Trends

Concerns exist over the monitor-ing and accuracy of e-tolling billing which was thought to be a challenge to effective and efficient fleet management. In the past, instances of fleet card fraud at service stations and toll booths were detected through checking fuel and tolling receipts.

“The problem with e-tolling” as one delegate involved in retail logistics commented “is that there is no paper trail, so how does a company ascertain the accuracy of the monthly statement? How are the correct discounts for frequent usage monitored?”

The extensive access and use of fleet and petrol cards, paperless and electronic transactions, and the knowledge required to com-bat abuse as technology makes fleet management an almost seamless activity, produce their own user and monitoring issues. However, solutions have already been developed to address this.

David Molapo, Head of Fleet Management in the Vehicle and Asset Finance division at Standard Bank commented: “At any given point in time, our systems already allow fleet managers themselves to directly access real time and in-depth information on their fleet, includ-ing any purchases, fleet card usage and transactions declined, via the Internet.”

“In the case of e-tolling, Fleet Card issuers have been con-ducting trials using their own platforms for testing purposes. We have spent considerable time ensuring that the technologies we use are able to process e-toll transactions, and will give the customer the confidence that all fleet transactions are accurately recorded, and any discounts and frequent user concessions processed are recorded and reported on.”

George Allen, Head of Fleet Operations at Standard Bank, said that Standard Bank has practical tools within their fleet management systems to conveniently manage fleet card transactions and to flag any potential abuse or misuse of cards.

“For example with fuel purchases, a fleet card transaction can be declined if a vehicle re-fuels within a specified time parameter. Card expenditure patterns can also be analysed. The benefit of this real-time monitoring is the quickness within which abuse and fraudulent activity can be identified and preventative measures implemented. So while there are genuine concerns being raised, they are not insurmountable with the technology that Standard Bank has made available to fleet operations. One marries the input data with the registered and transactional data; any activity outside of these para-meters will either be declined at a point-of-sale terminal or be investigated.”

Allen added that in the fleet card industry, discussions are currently under way to also provide customers with a chip and PIN enabled fleet card.

“From a Standard Bank perspective we see this as a supplement to the current magnetic strip fleet card offering and not a replacement. Our transaction authorisation capability of declining invalid transactions at point-of-sale is robust and continuously evolves to prevent irregularities, abuse and fraud.”

Allen added that chip and PIN enabled fleet cards will support cross-border transactions in those countries where the card could be accepted as means of payment at point-of-sale. Once chip and PIN is available in the market, a practical consideration for fleet managers is where multiple drivers are using the same vehicle, and that these drivers and fleet personnel would each need to have individualised fleet cards to transact as the PIN number always should be unique and confidential to one single authorised user.

Fuel and Fleet Costs

The forum commented on how continued rising fuel and input costs have highlighted the need to monitor driving patterns and fuel efficiencies/inefficiencies. Budgeting is becoming difficult due to continuous fuel and industry price hikes. Standard Bank figures showed that the average fuel transaction in 2010 was some R515, and in 2012 that figure had risen by 62% to R833 per transaction. How do fleet managers deal with rising fuel costs and what technologies can be used to assist in ensuring that fuel expenditure is managed optimally?

One suggestion by Standard Bank was that fuel increases take place on the first Wednesday of the month, and by the previous Friday, most are aware of the looming price increase (or decrease). “It would make sense for companies to notify fleet drivers to re-fuel on the days preceding the fuel price increase. This would maximise fuel operational costs at the lower rate,” said Allen.

There are other input costs to consider. Standard Bank’s predictive modelling software assists fleet operators by recording past data related to fleet costs, for future budgeting purposes. It allows for operators to input anticipated fuel and other input price increases/decreases. The predictive model-ling software will then be able to calculate operational data related to a fleet, including future fuel costs, and maintenance costs.

Transactions authorisation is another way in which costs can be monitored. For example, the very nature of the medical laboratory business requires that most fleet vehicles refuel as often as twice daily. Rejecting invalid transactions at point-of-sale means that any fraudulent activity is highlighted timeously.

The forum expressed a view that the ideal technology required for monitoring fleet expenses, should be a technology based on one common platform to make the compilation of all fleet management statistics a more streamlined function. The chal-lenge facing many fleet oper-ations was to obtain online real-time kilometre usage per vehicle. All information could then be married from one source and an accurate cost-per-kilometre can be established.

Carbon Emissions

Vehicle carbon emissions is an environmental concern which is yet to gain traction in South Africa, perhaps due to the once-off nature of the relevant tax when a vehicle is purchased. Thereafter it becomes an out-of-sight-out-of-mind issue with not many local concerns measuring the carbon footprint of their fleets.

“There has been so much focus recently on ‘going green’ and on carbon emissions but we haven’t seen much beyond the carbon tax on the purchase of new vehicles in our field. Standard Bank launched a Web-based product, ECO2Fleet, early last year that allows fleet managers to measure their carbon footprint per vehicle. It is ready in anticipation of any new legislation coming into play that may require disclosure of carbon emissions. This reporting requirement is already a trend internationally,” comments Molapo.

“With our web-based product, we allow customers to not only determine their carbon footprint per vehicle, but compare these to a manufacturer default should one exist (based on the year model of the vehicle) as well as to a national average for similar vehicles,” adds Allen.

One local distributor said that they have had to look towards eco fleets as a cost saving measure, by installing cooling units, powered by liquid nitrogen tanks on their trucks, making their fleet environment friendly due to noise reduction through quieter running, carbon friendly, and cutting their running costs.

In the logistics/freighting sector where deliveries can be for a multitude of clients, one participant commented that “from a retail point of view we do some ethicals as well as general cargo, and some clients will not align themselves with a logistics company that is not seen to be moving forward in this arena. Some of our freighting competitors, who have already embraced the go-green footprint initiatives, are certainly landing contracts where environmental compliance is a core requirement, so it is the way forward and South African fleet operators need to embrace this issue more fully or be prepared to lose business”.

The flip side of the coin for another delegate was the need to reduce energy costs rather than client pressure to comply, so clearly there are business as well as saving incentives with going green.

Driver Safety and Technology

Driver fatigue is still reported as the main culprit of the majority of accidents in the transportation sector. The lack of awareness by drivers about how incorrect resting periods, lack of medical fitness tests (particularly eye tests) and even incorrect eating habits can play a role in the fatigue syndrome needs to be addressed through Driver Fatigue Management programmes, Advanced Driver Training courses and Wellness programmes.

Drivers today are also required to embrace ever-changing in-cab technology. The lack of operator capability related to technology skills, for example in the retail sector, is a pressing issue, especially with the advent of sophisticated operator controls on modern vehicles, which can be more of a hindrance in South Africa than a benefit due to local skills shortages.

Typically, the courier and pharmaceutical sector drivers are using various hand-held devices for data uploading to trip sheets. There is a need for drivers to use newer, easier and more functional products. Today’s smart phones, which are cheaper than some of the existing devices, can be used for the same purpose – the view from the forum floor was that smart phone technology for fleet data capture is the way forward.

There is definitely scope for new technology to be implemented; it just needs to be a solution that affords the driver ease of operation and the company protection from misuse. The current situation has often been found operator-unfriendly due to the lack of synergy between the developer and the end-user with the driver often being left in the dark through lack of proper training on the equipment. Much of the new smart technology can be used to better advantage all round if all management and drivers are aware of the smart capabilities and how to access them.

While all agreed that technology does not replace personal com-munications with drivers, there was a suggestion to establish an online fleet operator/driver forum, where good practice, articles of relevance and case studies and open chat forums could be accessed in order to share skills and knowledge.

Forum participants are aware of the many Web-based fleet management offerings from Standard Bank, and urged the bank to continue embracing technology in meeting their needs of accurate measurement and data capture.

Technology in the fleet industry is certainly moving ahead. The element of human error in the fleet sector is not going to disappear, and only continued education can play a role in reducing this. The need for advanced technology in vehicles is a moot point depending on the skill and educational level of the driver – but it is advancing. A cab is no longer a cab, it is en route to becoming a mobile technical hub and that is a major challenge the fleet management sector has to embrace.

 

Edited by Creamer Media Reporter

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