What should your 2018 Fleet Management considerations be?

As we rapidly move towards 2018 it is worth taking a round up of where we are and where your fleet management focus should be moving forward. Throughout the year there has been a continued emphasis on safety and that will carry on through to 2018 and beyond.

Keep up with Fleet Safety

Whilst safety is always top of the cards there had recently been more emphasis in this area and calls for more improvements in vehicle safety standards.

More recently The European Parliament’s Transport Committee called for all new vehicles that are sold in Europe to have Automated Emergency Braking (AEB) and Intelligent Speed Assistance (ISA) as standard. They are also considering measures to improve lorry driver’s direct vision to protect pedestrians and cyclists.

The future of vehicle safety will become heavily dependent on the continued development of technology. The success of which goes hand in hand with driver training and ensuring competent usage of such advancements.

Consider Mobility

Mobility solutions will shape how fleets will look in the future, making the fleet more valuable, economical and holistic. Fleet Managers are beginning to consider and discuss different mobility solutions and whether that starts with carpooling solutions to cut costs and under-usage of vehicles or whether we are merely talking about considering the cheapest mode of transport for individual journeys, the future of mobility will see us in a much more advanced place.

There are plenty of companies out there who have employees with company cars who only travel a limited number of business miles whose mobility can be dealt with in a much more cost-effective way.

It is all going to be about developing systems to track and record transport usage and availability, once this is fully established it will open a lot of possibilities for the future of fleet management. Many experts are starting to even talk about a shift from Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) to Total Cost of Mobility (TCM).

Change is coming fast with developments in technology and Fleet Managers should ensure from now onwards that they are aligned with forward thinking partners and technology that integrates fully.

Balance your Big Data

With the growth in abundance of data available, moving through the year Fleet Managers will need to learn how to identify the stand out analytics which can be used as the basis of future decisions and improvements. With so much information available the challenge is to filter through and find the meaningful data that impacts on your fleet costs.

With so much data coming through in different forms it is important to have integration for a smoother process and to look for providers who give summary snapshots which are easier to deal with. Getting all your data aligned now will bode well for the future as more and more meaningful data becomes available enabling predictive analysis.

Be ready for accounting changes

New lease accounting is set to come into force in January 2019. They seek to require companies to include any lease obligations on their balance sheets. Fleet Managers who lease company vehicles need to start gaining input from their accounts teams and collecting comparable financial statements to be prepared for the transition. Whilst the reform comes into place in 2019 you will need two years of comparable data.

It is recommended that Fleet Managers liaise with their accounting staff to discuss the best way to make this transition an easy process and focus on building information throughout the year in preparation.