The Fleet Management KPIs you should focus on at year end

2020 has been a strange year, with the pandemic and various lockdowns your goals and targets for fleet management may not have been achievable.

As social distancing restrictions are still in place, this may impact what you should and shouldn’t measure as a Key Performance Indicator.

To get a better understanding of how your fleet is performing, you should focus on the following key performance indicators (KPIs).

The KPI’s you should focus on this year:

The importance of Fleet Safety

Keeping your fleet safe should be your number one priority. There are many effective ways that you can measure the safety of your fleet. After you have collected the data for the year, you should be able to review how many vehicle accidents have happened, OSHA accidents (serious at work accidents that require reporting), speeding incidents and aggressive acceleration and braking incidents.

Collating all this data via telematics or any other driver tracking tools you use will help to decide on two things; the level of insurance you need going forward, and who needs driver training.

Addressing these issues will not only keep your fleet safer but will also drive down future costs, as you’re focusing on targeted areas that need improving.

Regular Vehicle inspections

Each of your drivers should complete a vehicle inspection report to track the conditions of your vehicles and to look out for any potential issues with the vehicle.

By the end of the year, you should be able to determine which defects are most common across the vehicles in your fleet. You will be able to pick up on any trends and focus on providing a solution for this going forward to minimise recurring issues.

Preventative maintenance costs

Having vehicle’s off the road can be expensive for fleet management. The best way to ensure your cars are kept on the road is to perform routine maintenance checks. Monitor the mileage or time duration between checks and make sure you have them scheduled.

Keeping track of this data and reviewing it regularly can help you understand what your team's overall maintenance plans are, what preventative maintenance is needed, what is currently undergoing maintenance work and what assets are overdue.

Efficiency and maintenance order completions

Another way to track your fleet management KPIs is to look at maintenance completion rates and efficiency. Focusing on maintenance and repair completion rates can help to avoid unwanted vehicle downtime.

You should monitor how long it typically takes for the garage to repair vehicles and get them back on the road. This year you may notice that due social distancing rules, repair completion time takes a bit longer. To reduce the repair time while these restrictions are still in place, you should focus on improving the maintenance of your vehicles for the first half of the next year.

You should also be aware of reduced staffing, as some may be off-sick of unable to work due to being vulnerable. Work with your team and utilise them efficiently. Work with your staff to track fuel usage per vehicle, vehicle idling time and vehicle usage. 

Review parts inventory

To better prepare yourself for next year and tracking fleet management KPIs, it is worth noting how much you spent on your parts inventory. You may notice a trend in that some parts need purchasing more than others.

Keeping tabs on your inventory gives you a good insight into your operation’s usage and ensure that you have the right parts in stock, resulting in less wastage and being better prepared in having the right parts in stock.

Track the total cost of ownership

Keeping track of the total cost of ownership will help to determine the overall cost of keeping a vehicle in your fleet. Monitoring these costs will help you to identify which vehicles need replacing and how much it is costing your fleet.

You’ll be able to tell if it needs replacing by how often it needs repairing, how frequently it needs maintenance checks and how many miles overall the vehicle has done.

All of this together should be your main focus when looking at your fleet management KPIs, especially in a year where your operations may be different to usual, no matter how your fleet has coped with the increase or decrease in business activity.

Monitoring your Fleet Management KPI’s not only helps the efficiency of your fleet but it will also help to fully understand what state your fleet is in, how often your fleet requires maintenance and how many accidents happen on average each year.

Providing all of this information to your insurance provider will help to ensure you are paying the correct amount for your fleet insurance but also to check that you have adequate cover.