Simply installing a package that tracks your vehicles and leaving it at that does not mean that you have a comprehensive fleet management system in place. The reality is that you have only done half a job, and the gaps that have not been filled could lead to serious long-term difficulties.

That is the view of John Bell, chief executive officer at South African fleet management software specialist, FleetPro. He is becoming increasingly worried that an alleged change of emphasis among operators in his own country away from the proactive management of maintenance and in favour of tracking – understandable perhaps given the high crime rate – is already creating problems.

‘The tracking systems that companies install provide information as to where an accident took place and the actions of drivers but have not brought about a reduction in accident levels,’ he contends.

What businesses should also be doing, he says, is ensuring that any faults – bald tyres, defective brakes and so on – are dealt with before vehicles leave their premises. In many cases they are not doing so, Bell claims.

‘Too many bus accidents in South Africa are caused by vehicle failure and that is because the buses concerned are not managed by a system that flags up problems at the right time,’ he alleges.

‘A good fleet management system will handle maintenance and repair, replacement costs, budgeting and cash flow requirements and cope with them all equally well,’ he continues. ‘It will ensure that vehicles are safe and roadworthy and will give owners a full history of what work has been done and by whom.’

FleetPro’s own software package can address all these areas says Bell, not to mention the management of fuel, accidents and fines. Nor is it sold solely in South Africa: FleetPro is represented in the UK, Tanzania and Mauritius, and Bell has recently signed a deal to supply its software to Diamondlease, the largest independent vehicle rental and leasing company in the United Arab Emirates.

In Zimbabwe its fleet management

package is being implemented by Pioneer Unifreight Group’s Swift and Pioneer businesses. They run 900 vehicles including cars, vans, trucks, buses, motorcycles and trailers.

Companies such as South Africa’s own MiX Telematics would doubtless argue that tracking can certainly bring down accident levels if combined with a unit that monitors the behaviour of drivers at the wheel and provides them with instant feedback that will hopefully improve their conduct. However, Bell is not saying that tracking is pointless but should simply be viewed as a single tool: not an entire toolbox.

Fleet management software certainly needs to be able to help companies with their tax returns, especially in countries where the provision of a car or van is treated as a taxable benefit for the individuals concerned. The amount of tax levied can be a bone of contention, nowhere more so than in Australia, where recent FBT – Fringe Benefit Tax – changes proposed by the government have enraged fleet industry bosses.

As things stand, if you are given a company car in Australia then it is assumed that 20% of its usage is private and you are taxed on that. However, the government proposes to abandon this stance in favour of drivers completing log books that will show precisely how much of their driving is work-related and how much is personal, and they will be taxed accordingly.

As a consequence some may face higher income tax bills and their employers will end up facing a lot more paperwork.

The impact will be especially severe on small and medium-size businesses, argues Fleetcare, Australia’s largest independent fleet management company. It recently surveyed 200 of them in the wake of the FBT announcement and says that 56% state that the impact of the proposals on them will be significant.

36% intend to cut back on the size of their fleets according to the survey while 24% are moving towards cash allowances for drivers instead of supplying cars. 45% say that they do not have the resources to manage logbooks given how time-intensive the compliance process is likely to be.

‘I don’t know what sums the government has based its FBT revenue forecasts on, but with such a dramatic change in behaviour the end-result will be only a fraction of the tax revenues they may be expecting,’ observes Fleetcare chief executive officer, Nigel Malcolm.

Fleetmanager, Fleetcare’s fleet management software system, is already set up to gather FBT data from fleets and enables a return to be prepared for the Australian Taxation Office although the proposed changes are unlikely to make this task any easier. It generates a year-end FBT report for fleets too.

That is in addition to reports on and analyses of fuel card activity, kilometres travelled, fleet composition and a variety of other factors. An on-screen dashboard allows users to retrieve the information they need and drivers can be alerted using SMS messages if, say, their vehicle needs servicing or an odometer reading is missing.

Australia was in the run-up to a general election at the time of writing which could lead to a change of government and another re-think of FBT policy. But whatever stance eventually emerges, data will still have to be recorded, and suitable software will be required to do it.

Finding that vital bit of information a fleet management package contains when you need it quickly can be frustratingly difficult on occasions. That is why PHH Arval has tried to improve the service it provides to fleet operators in the USA and Canada by enhancing the search function of its PHH InterActive online fleet management portal.

The new approach condenses all vehicle and person searches down to a single search box that allows the user to find what he or she is looking for by inputting virtually any identifying information.

Last year saw PHH Arval launch PHH InterActive for Drivers Mobile, an app that allows drivers to complete fleet-related tasks without having to make special trips to the office. In North America it is also continuing to launch enhancements for PHH FleetSelect, a vehicle ordering system said to enable customers to have an experience akin to being in a virtual dealer showroom when ordering cars.

Dimensions of scores of vehicles can be checked and the vehicles concerned can be viewed through 360 degrees.

PHH InterActive users include Rodger Klarer, fleet manager, employee services, at McDonald’s Canada. It offers leased vehicles to corporate staff and restaurant managers from a fleet almost 600 strong and Klarer makes regular use of PHH InterActive Dashboard, a summary reporting tool.

It allows him to, for example, examine the performance of a particular make and model of vehicle over time and if necessary alter his purchasing decisions in the light of the information he has seen. ‘With Dashboard I can keep a better finger on the fleet and act quickly if anything comes up,’ he observes.

Not all company cars are allocated to individual members of staff of course. Some are pool cars and they can present fleet managers with a major challenge, especially when it comes to assessing levels of utilisation.

Are some cars ever actually used or do they just sit there, representing a constant, barely noticed, but nonetheless expensive overhead? They still have to be taxed and insured even if they hardly turn a wheel.

New Zealand software development house Fleet Works believes it can provide at least some of the answers with iJourney, its pool car booking system.

It enables up to four staff members to book into a car for a single trip, lessening the risk that they will all take a pool car each even though they are heading for the same destination. Staff can see who is in which car and where they are going and change their plans if possible so that their departure and return times match.

It also allows fleet managers to see how intensively pool cars are utilised and may enable them to shrink the pool's size and save cash.

Fleet management systems are increasingly likely to be delivered as cloud-based solutions. S & T Europe, the Houten, Netherlands, based European offshoot of Taiwan’s Systems & Technology Corporation has come up with one called MyFMS which can handle everything from the recording of CO2 emissions to keeping track of business mileage for tax purposes.

‘It is available for companies with thousands of vehicles as well as delivering high value to firms with only a few,’ says product manager, Frank Leemkuil. Currently available in Dutch, German and English it will gradually be released in more languages as it is rolled out across Europe.

Tracking’s role in fleet management should not of course be diminished, a view that is certainly taken by Republic of Ireland commercial and domestic waste collection and recycling specialist, The City Bin Co. With sites in Dublin and Oranmore, County Galway, it is using a GPS monitoring package sourced from Irish fleet management software specialist Fleetmatics to keep tabs on its 28 refuse collection vehicles.

It also uses it as an aid to route planning and scheduling.

‘I can look at a certain area, see where all my customers are, and plan accordingly,’ says operations director, Niamh Bray. ‘If I need to add another customer then I can see which truck would be the best one to use to service them and add that customer’s stop to its route.’

The system tells Bray when a truck’s power take-off is in use, which means a bin is being lifted. ‘If a customer says we didn’t empty his bin then I can pull up a report which shows when the power take-off was activated,’ she says.

If it was activated outside the client’s premises then that is an indication that the bin was indeed emptied and that the client is mistaken.

Also useful to The City Bin Co is the package’s idling report, which shows when a truck is stationary and the engine is ticking over, potentially wasting fuel – and increasing the fleet’s CO2 output – and causing unnecessary wear and tear to components.

‘Because of the nature of the operation we run then some idling time is necessary,’ says Bray. ‘But if a truck is idling more than is normal then that is something that will be highlighted and that I will have to look into.’

She is especially pleased with the mobile app that Fleetmatics has developed, which provides real-time access

to vehicle locations as well as to alerts and reports.

‘Rather than having to log on to my PC I can see where all my trucks are when I’m at home just by using the app on my iPhone,’ she adds. ‘It allows me to keep track of my vehicles: and know if someone is running late.’