3 Ways Data Optimizes Fleet Operations

And welcome to Transport Dive and Bestpass,

three Ways Data optimizes Fleet Operations webinar.

I’m Jeff Gamut, and I’ll be your moderator today. Now, before we get started,

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Comprehensive fleet data can help fleet managers make informed decisions on

everything from routes to staffing. Today,

we will talk about how fleet managers can optimize their operations using data.

Now, we’re joined today by Mark Canton and John Routledge.

Mark is a senior manager with Mercury Associates with more than 25 years of

experience in transportation and fleet management.

He directs the company’s data analytics team and has worked extensively

in university transportation, logistics and fleet management.

His experience includes technology and software implementation,

the development of driver and staff training modules and curricula,

fleet management policy, vendor management,

strategic planning and process re-engineering. At Mercury,

he’s involved in data analytics, best practices, assessments,

and other fleet management projects. He’s a national safety council,

certified defensive driving instructor,

and serves as expert witness in vehicle costs,

class action lawsuits and similar cases.

Mark also serves as the head of product for Ron Turley Associates,

a premier fleet management information system company.

His passion is to help fleet professionals tell your story with numbers.

And, uh,

John joined Best Pass in 2021 with more than 20 years of

experience in building and leading organizations that accelerate growth and

market share.

John previously served as the president of Highway administration and as

executive vice president of Vera Mobility. In his current role,

John leads the consumer business unit that is tasked with expanding best

passes presence in Agit markets and segments.

John helps bring new products and services to market and expand their customer

base. Hey, welcome Mark and John,

I’m so glad you’re both here with us today.

Thank you. Thank you for having us.

Yeah. And

To be here.

Yeah. And, uh, let’s just jump right in. Uh,

telemedics have been around for decades and the technology has obviously

improved during that time.

What benefits are companies seeing now and what impact is this having on leaders

and fleet managers? And Mark, why don’t you start us off?

Yeah. Data is, you know,

obviously the availability of data has been around for some time,

but what’s changed is over the course of the last 20 years is the,

there’s a expectation from leadership, uh,

that fleet leaders and fleet organizations will make data driven decisions

and will leverage data to gain insight into the business, into the company,

uh, and into, uh, their, uh, you know, and into their behavior.

And to use that data to modify behavior, to drive efficiency,

and to drive safety.

Okay. And, uh, John, do you wanna jump in with anything?

Yeah, I think, uh, to pick up on Mark’s point, you know,

there’s more data available today than, than ever before, and it’s evolved,

um, fairly comprehensively. Um,

you’ve also gotta look at the fleet operators environment. They’re, they’re,

they’re challenged today more than ever before. In fact,

a recent survey found that 73%, um,

of fleet managers cited higher fuel costs, cost of living as,

as significant factors impacting their business.

And using data intelligently,

you’re able to better plan the usage of your fleet.

You’re able to improve your, uh, insurance position. Um,

you’re able to optimize, um, the, the wear and tear on the vehicle,

and ultimately you can, you can use data to moderate,

um, driving hours and driving behavior. Uh, so ultimately those,

those increased costs data can help you offset some of that.

Yeah, and we’re seeing a change as well now,

now we’re having a change in leadership amongst the, uh,

fleet organizations where traditionally fleet managers were folks who worked

their way up the shop, uh, from either mechanic or driver.

And now as the demographics change,

you’re seeing more and more fleet managers who maybe don’t have that, uh,

experience, you know, with the shop, but have,

but have much greater comfort and experience, uh, working with data,

working with fleet data. And so that, again, that role is changing.

There’s an expectation that data is used to help drive efficiency. Uh,

and so, and so, it’s, it’s, it’s a really evolving thing.

The te technology is evolving dramatically.

Telematics has been around for over 20 years, and yet there’s been a sort of a,

a true massive trend upwards over the last 10 years, I would say. And the,

and the technology involved with techno, uh,

with telematics has changed dramatically.

It’s gone from simply knowing where an asset is to being able to monitor speed,

monitor how hard you stop and monitor, how hard, how fast you accelerate,

how cold is the cargo that you’re carrying, uh, do the folks in your, uh, bus,

uh, are they running a high temperature.

So the technology has just gone through the charts and,

and that’s has led to a greater dependency by operation departments on fleet

managers.

Okay. Okay. And, uh,

so the implementation and use of data may vary by the

type of fleet or cargo, I presume.

So let’s talk about route optimization. Uh,

that’s a key part of an effective and efficient oper operation.

So how has optimization evolved and how are route

managers leveraging the data available to them today?

So I think, uh,

route optimization is a critical part of fleet management. You know, in,

in the, in, excuse me, in the simplest terms,

you wouldn’t want to deploy an asset that’s based in New York down for a trip in

Florida. Um,

you’re looking to utilize your fleet in a way that

geographically minimizes the amount of miles traveled in

relation to the accomplishment or the delivery of the goods and services

involved. Um, a good,

a good example of that is actually in the last mile delivery carriers who’ve

been using route optimization for, for a number of years, the likes of a,

a UPS or FedEx or, or even Amazon now, um,

if you look at what UPS do, they,

they build their routes based upon where the shipments,

where the packages need to either be picked up or delivered.

And they’ve even taken it to the extent that when the driver goes to load their

vehicle,

the order in which the packages are put on the vehicle is directly related to

the, the route that they’re going to take, uh, to operate and, and,

and manage those deliveries and, and pickups.

And what they’re then able to do is, at the end of the day, understand,

did the driver stick to that route, or, or did they deviate? Now,

there could be a good reason for deviation,

there could be an accident somewhere,

or a road closure or some sort of construction work that wasn’t

originally envisaged, but it could equally,

it can enable the fleet manager to sit there and understand how efficiently the

driver is operating at any given time. Um, so I think if you,

if you look at those data points, uh, and you look at the way that,

that fleet managers now can almost, uh,

pre-plan all of those events so that they are reducing the wear and tear

on the vehicle, they’re getting the optimal fuel consumption,

and ultimately they’re doing the,

the most number of stops or the least number of miles required to,

to complete the task.

Yeah. And if I could just chime in there, you know, that mm-hmm. Uh,

ev everything that you, you said is completely accurate. And I agree with,

however,

I I will say that I’ve noticed that depending on your industry or your segment,

um, that role may be, may be different.

And so what I mean by that is certainly in the world of trucking and logistics,

as you’ve referred to, and I think that’s who you’re,

you’re mostly thinking about that there’s very little line between

transportation management or logistics management and fleet management.

Those roles emerge together because it’s a vocational fleet and therefore it’s

intrinsically tied, uh, you know,

to the work being done on the transportation side and the logistics side.

However, in things like municipal governments,

those roles tend to be very different, very separate.

Fleet management is essentially focused on asset management of the fleet assets,

right? Whether that’s acquisition, maintenance, repair, and so forth.

But they do, to your point, and this is what I think is key,

and I want our audience to understand this,

they do provide a critical support role to all of the various operating

departments or agents agencies. And so even if routing, for example,

may not be your, uh, direct responsibility as a fleet manager,

because let’s say the operations manager over at the sanitation department or at

the school bus yard does that themselves, and there’s someone for that position,

nonetheless, you having access to the kind of data, uh,

that James is talking about, um, is,

is key because you, you can then support and you can provide data insights,

you can show efficiencies, you can support utilization management,

the distribution of assets and how they’re assigned and so forth and so on,

to gain that kind of efficiency, uh, that you’re referring to.

So I think it’s a, it’s a really important point.

Yep. I agree.

Yes. And, uh, uh, so Mark,

uh, I’d like to talk to you just quickly about the,

the whole thing with route management. I mean, it,

it feels to me like route management isn’t going to be very effective if

your vehicles aren’t actually reliable.

So how is Modern Data Collection helping with the,

the asset management and replacement?

Yeah, thank, thank you for that question, cuz I really do think that’s,

that’s from my perspective, or perhaps the most key thing.

The key impact is, you know, the old way, uh, of,

of doing replacement in fleets was mostly by

experience, by gut, by let’s say guesstimating. Um,

you know, uh, what does my neighbor do?

What does my colleague do in a similar industry? Uh, you know,

that sort of a thing. Um, and what the, the,

the challenge of that is that as assets age,

I think it’s a fairly understood concept, is that as assets age,

generally speaking as a class of assets,

their operating costs are going to go way up. And yet at the same time, the,

the, the potential repair or maintenance of that asset will never by itself,

um, be more expensive than to replace the asset. And, and almost every case.

And so what that has led to is a tremendous tendency to keep assets much too

long. Uh, sometimes politics would be involved, sometimes it was the concept of,

well, we haven’t utilized it enough.

And so until we hit a certain utilization level,

we’re not gonna consider replacing it. So by leveraging data,

a key thing that can, and really ought be done by fleet managers,

is to essentially, um, uh,

develop what I would call at Mercury an optimal replacement cycle analysis. Uh,

others will call it a life cycle analysis. And essentially what what you do is,

is you develop a stream of costs. What are your capital costs? Uh, you know,

based on, uh, the value of the asset, how quickly it’s depreciating,

what its essential residual value is at different points in time. Uh,

what are your m maintenance and repair costs? What are your fuel costs?

What are your opportunity costs, uh, with fuel, right? What do you have,

fuel degradation, et cetera, et cetera. Uh, and then other things like, um,

for example, what’s your inflation rate? What is your cost of money?

And so forth and so on. But by streaming all these costs and putting, uh,

putting them together,

you can essentially define what is the optimal from an economic perspective.

Esen em, essentially Dever develop the equivalent annual cost,

which project managers and, and the world of engineering and, uh,

will be very familiar with.

But the idea is that you can compare replacing assets at different lives

and what those potential costs are. And in doing so,

you determine precisely what is the optimal year for replacement.

You can also decide, um, based on other factors, for example,

your access to capital,

how mu how far off of the optimal year you’re willing to get.

What you’ll generally see is that there’s not much sensitivity plus or minus

a year. But as you get to plus or minus two and three and four and five years,

you see that sensitivity, you know, grow exponentially.

And so you can make decisions both based on what’s optimal economically,

but also what, what access to capital you have and what your cost of capital is.

So that really is a, a, a key piece as far as I’m concerned, is,

uh, leveraging data. And those fleets that do that very, very well, uh,

tend to have very efficient,

well-run fleets because by replacing assets in a timely manner,

in a consistent manner, um,

you tend to avoid many of the other pitfalls associated with owning and

operating a fleet. And if you can’t avoid them all together,

you mitigate them pretty severely. At the same time, you avoid the mistake of,

uh, uh, of putting too much pressure on your,

your ca your access to capital by not replacing them, uh, too quickly.

The key thing with poorly re reports, poorly replaced rates is downtime,

right? And so, as downtime is extremely high,

there’s only five possible outcomes if your downtime is too high, number one,

you have more fleet than you need, right? Meaning,

in order to account for the fact that you have down assets,

you have extra spares, you’re renting commercial rental,

assuming that type of asset is available on the commercial rental market,

you’re outsourcing the work or subbing the work to another firm, uh,

you’re paying overtime to your operators. In other words,

you’re doubling up on shifts for your assets in order to get that work done,

or five, the work simply doesn’t get done. And so poorly,

there’s a direct correlation in the data that shows that fleets with poor

replacement plans, um,

tend to actually be more expensive than the perception that those folks

operating those fleets have,

because they’re not expending as much in capital costs.

So I think that’s a big key.

I think this is especially crucial now because of inflation. Uh,

folks are sort of shying away from it. Uh, and that, and that’s a mistake. Um,

you have to lean into doing strong replacement planning, uh, to avoid, uh,

the potential costs. Um, because when you think about it,

parts and labor costs are up as well, right? And,

and with that happens of obviously labor, uh, you know,

all kinds of costs such as freight and so forth go up.

So last year they were up 13%.

And then obviously machine learning is great, uh,

because machine learning and that, and this is sort of, um, out in front,

but essentially you can use machine learning or you could even use algorithms

that identify problems or issues before they occur.

So the idea is predictive analytics, right? So think in terms, you know,

one example might be an oil rigging company that can accurately predict the

failure of a particular component before that asset goes into the field. Well,

that’s tremendous.

Right Now you don’t have all of the cost associated with going and retrieving

that asset, repairing the asset,

replacing the asset with something else that’s suitable,

and then all of that downtime and lost labor opportunity and so forth and so on.

So, predictive analytics is, is really sort of the, the next frontier. Uh,

and certainly machine learning is gonna be a key piece of,

of turning that from something that some very large and sophisticated fleets can

do to kind of normalizing it to being part of the fleet industry.

Okay, great. Thanks. And so we,

we’ve talked about logistics, we’ve talked about equipment,

we haven’t talked about drivers yet.

How do they fit into this mix? And John,

why didn’t you start us off on this one?

Yeah, this is a, a really important component and, and, you know,

driver behavior can have a,

a really significant impact on your operating costs. Um,

if you look at, if you, if you look at some of the,

some of the data points that are available, um, for instance, we, uh,

best pass launched a citation payment processing service last year.

And one of the,

one of the outputs of that was to be able to present to fleet

operators where citations were being incurred and who they were being incurred

1. And that, that,

that enables the, the fleet manager,

the fleet operator to really focus in on driver behavior.

A citation can have a significant cost, uh, to, to your fleet.

Uh, it can put the fleet in jeopardy. Uh, it can create accidents.

Um, and, and clearly being proactive with that information. And if you’ve got a,

if you’ve got a fleet of a hundred drivers and five of them are regularly

causing the citations, then you’re able to sit there and,

and present some, um, strong case for training,

strong case for, uh,

improved driving behavior that ultimately DR drives down your costs.

It also enables you to look to reward good behaviors. I focus very much on the,

uh, the behavior of a driver that isn’t compliant, but equally,

you can then reward those that, that are creating the,

the least amount of risks that are, are driving the, the unit in a safe,

uh, uh, manner,

and ultimately are helping to reduce your overall operating costs.

You’re also able to use data to look at when a vehicle is being used out of

hours and,

and even if there isn’t an E L D plugged into the vehicle,

which is unlikely these days, but even there is,

there are then other data points. So for instance,

if a vehicle incurs a toll charge at a weekend,

why was the vehicle being used at the weekend when it shouldn’t have been used?

So you’re able to, to, to, to Mark’s point,

use data intelligently to ultimately improve

driver behavior, to improve fleet performance.

And all of those factors helps drive down your overall operating costs.

Yeah, I, I couldn’t agree more with John. Uh, you know, it, it,

it really is game changing, uh, to be able to, you know,

monitor behavior and, but also influence, you know, he talked about, uh,

not only finding the folks who are, you know, doing poor behavior,

but rewarding folks who are doing good behavior.

I think that’s brilliant because what that does is it creates within the,

the organization their own sort of policing and their own sort of positive

culture. So, um, my experience is, uh, is, is very similar.

Um, I think the,

the number one return on investment from implementing telematics, uh,

as far as immediate return on investment,

the things that fleets kind of are able to get their hands on very quickly, uh,

is looking at driver behavior associated with idling. So, for example,

does that asset or vehicle need to be running?

Does that engine need to be running?

Is it just because they were lazy and they turned it on and walked away kind of

a thing? Or, or not, you know,

maybe it’s very cold and it really didn’t need to be running, or maybe, uh,

you know, you drove a truck and it, uh,

and it has hydraulic lift on it and it needs to run while that lift is running.

And so it was actually an operation being able to identify those kinds of things

and having that kind of insight, you know,

when is idle really idle and when is it not idle? But, you know,

from the ROI perspective,

one of the things that I find pretty much every fleet will get, uh,

a pretty quick return on is reducing idling.

Because while some of that behavior will be legitimate, much of it won’t be.

And so there’s a tremendous fuel cost savings that happens almost immediately.

You know, I, I think that, uh, John’s reference to, uh,

adherence to safety regulations, you know, hit the nail on the head.

So I’ll leave that alone. But, you know, there’s this, there’s this new piece.

And again, when I say new with telematics,

it’s a very interesting phenomenon because like I said,

it’s been around some time, but it seems to have this, uh, this, you know,

hit curve where eventually things become, uh, in,

and folks really begin to implement it. And that’s probably related to, uh,

the pace at which technology allows it to operate, you know, very efficiently.

And the thing that we’re seeing now really kick up is, is,

is the in-dash cameras.

So I think folks are pretty comfortable and familiar with dash cameras that are

facing outward, and that’s great. You know, a lot of time folks, uh,

drivers and operators are resistant to it because they feel like it’s big

brother and all that stuff. And then what they come to find is they love it.

And I cannot tell you how many cases of organizations that are so hard to have

those cameras, because they generally exonerate them more often than they, um,

you know, implement that implicate them as far as in a d bad driving behavior.

But now on top of that, there’s cameras that will face the driver.

And one of the technologies that you’re seeing an increase in implementation on

is essentially monitoring the eyes of the driver. Uh,

do they have sleepy eyes based on their eyelid levels? Are they distracted?

Are they hands on the wheel? Et cetera, et cetera.

So you can really leverage telematics to bring, uh,

safety via improved driver behavior to a, to a whole nother level.

And in the long run, you know,

my experience is that will save you money as well, right? Uh, usually,

uh,

just avoiding some of the potential pitfalls of not having these kinds of safety

elements in place. Uh, there’s a major cost avoidance there. So,

uh, it’s pretty exciting, pretty exciting stuff. What, what, what,

what we’re seeing with the technology these days.

Okay? Now, um, the,

the center of all this is the data and that data doesn’t have any

value for, aren’t actually doing anything with it.

So I’d like to dive a little deeper into actually

leveraging that data. And Mark, you’re on a roll,

so why don’t you jump in first?

Yeah, I mean, you, you,

you absolutely have to have a data management plan.

So I cannot tell you how frequently, uh, I’ll engage the client or, you know,

or customer, and they’ll say, Hey, we have all this stuff, you know,

we have a fleet management information software, we have telematics,

we have a tire pressure monitoring system, and, and, you know, fuel system,

et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Uh,

and they have all this data and they’re overwhelmed and they,

and they don’t know what to do. Uh, the analogy I use is myself, right? I have,

I can’t tell you how many streaming platforms I have,

and I don’t use most of them, right? So they’re all great.

They all have wonderful entertainment on ’em,

and great movies and TV and so forth and so on. But if I’m not using them,

what good are they? Right? It’s, I’m really wasting money.

And so the key to using them is having a plan before you go in.

Most folks will buy these technologies and they have this vision,

or they have this idea, this is gonna be great.

I’m gonna reduce idling and save fuel,

or I’m gonna reduce accidents by monitoring driver speeding and,

and those sorts of things. And, and those are all true.

Those are all achievable and they sound great,

but you don’t achieve them simply by implementing the, the technology, right?

That doesn’t, that doesn’t get you to the finish line.

So you really need to have a plan. And what a plan a amounts to is,

is really a few things. Number one,

you need policies and procedures around collecting data, right?

Whose job is it to enter? What, uh, what, you know, what do we touch,

what do we not touch?

What’s going to be fed from the telematics system into the fleet management

information software system, et cetera, et cetera.

So you need really strong policies around that, you know,

the frequency with which that data is going to be entered, et cetera, et cetera.

Work instructions for exactly how to use that technology,

which then leads to a second element, which is training. Um,

you know, even the most intuitive systems, uh, and the, and the, and again,

this dramatic improvement in that regard as far as the intuitive,

the intuitiveness of these systems,

the ability to pick them up and get rolling with them. And yet, uh,

in my experience, even the most intuitive systems, um,

the organization benefits from a level of training on them.

Exactly how do I use them, you know, uh, and, and what are we using it for,

you know? So I think that that’s really key piece of the plan.

And then investing in having people who can leverage data for you, right?

Most fleet managers, I, I joke, should go to work with a fire helmet on,

because really they’re just putting out fires all day long, right?

And the same with these operation managers who are routing and doing other

things. You know, they, they’re,

they’re literally in in reaction mode to deal with the accidents and the other

things that are happening in real time to try to make sure their deliveries are

are happening. So, um, and so you need, you need staff who can,

who who are trained and who are capable, uh, of leveraging data,

who are comfortable manipulating data. You know, obviously if,

if your organization can afford a data analyst or several of them,

I think that’s very important. Uh, but also, you know, data has context.

And so you could have the most brilliant data analyst in the world,

but you do need some folks who have some context around fleet data and the kinds

of data that, um, that you’re working with. And so the key is to,

the, the last step, I would argue as far as the plan is,

and to avoid that feeling of overwhelm,

is there’s this concept of focusing on the critical fuel few, excuse me,

critical few. So what is it exactly that you’re trying to achieve?

And this can change over time, or you can even add to it over time. But,

you know, year one, pick two to five, uh, objectives,

and what are these objectives? Okay, I’m gonna reduce, you know,

I’ll just pick it. I’m gonna reduce, you know, fuel costs by reducing idling.

Okay, great. So then what is the,

what are the data points you need to accomplish that?

What are the metrics you need to accomplish that?

And focus on that and screen out the rest? And like I said,

maybe you pick two to five in a year. Okay? And then the,

and then the other items, not that they’re not important,

you can keep ’em for historical,

but you don’t have to get lost in them or overwhelmed by them because that’s not

part of your objectives for this year, right? And then you can go ahead and,

and, and grow from that. You know, I mentioned downtime a little bit earlier,

you know, and the five reasons that, you know, assets are down, excuse me,

the five results, uh, uh, from assets being down.

And then you can kind of look into that, Hey, I have high downtime. You know,

the, the benchmark for downtime is 95%.

So if you have downtime that’s higher than 95%, um, well guess what?

You know,

one of those five things are happening to you and you can go explore them, uh,

and see what’s happening to you. Do you have a larger fleet than you need?

Are you renting a lot? Are you outsourcing a lot?

Are you spending a lot on overtime? Or is there work going undone? So, yeah,

John, thoughts,

Um, I think you made some really, really good points in, in there, mark.

I think that it can be overwhelming if you try,

and I’m gonna, I’m gonna solve every possible issue in, in, in year one.

Um, I think that,

that it’s important to know that you need to look at data through

various lenses. You shouldn’t just take one data source and, and,

and a assume that that’s the, the, the,

the sort of Trump card if you like. Um,

you need to look at data through various lenses. To Mark’s point,

you’ve gotta know what it is you’re trying to do, right? I’m, I’m,

I’m in the same camp as you, mark. I’ve got every streaming service available.

I think I watch, you know, maybe 20% of them, uh,

on a regular basis. Um,

so you can equip yourself with an awful lot of toys and ultimately

not know what you’re building. And I think that,

that ensuring that you’ve got more than one set of data,

that also helps to validate the accuracy. That’s true.

Understanding what you intend to do with it. And, and to Mark’s point,

having a plan and, and then informing people,

it’s not a single person crusade. Uh, mark talked about the training side.

I think, um,

the other part is to ensure that across the organization you’re

communicating what it is you you’re attempting to do,

why you’re attempting to do it, and how you are going to do it,

and what the benefits are to the organization. Um, you can,

you can turn up with a whole ton of data and sort of present it to someone and

go, ta-da,

and assume that they’re gonna understand what it is you’re trying to do.

If you haven’t explained the value of what it is you’re trying to achieve, um,

you’re going to find that the audience searches off pretty quickly. So I think,

again, having that plan, as Mark talked about,

looking at data through different lenses and then making sure people are aware

of what it is you are, you are actually doing, will,

will make the job a lot more manageable.

Yeah, I I think you hit the nail on the head there.

That’s a great point about telling your story, right? That’s, you know,

making sure folks know what you’re doing is a, um, you know, that’s really key.

And, and, and, you know, you reminded me of something else.

Cause you made a very good point about when you do have multiple data sources,

they help you validate, right? Uh, what what you’re seeing in each. And,

and I failed to mention that,

but that’s really very important part of the data management plan is do you have

data validation routines, right? Inevitably, bad data’s gonna come in, right?

Someone fat fingered something, right?

And it’s 80,000 miles instead of 800 miles or that sort of a thing.

Um, you know, uh, you, you’ll get a bad reading or something like that.

Everyone has seen that, uh, you know,

bounced off of a skyscraper wrong and came in funny.

And most of the softwares have great algorithms for, uh,

correcting that themselves. Nonetheless. Uh,

especially when it comes to data that’s being collected via manual entry,

maybe on your D V I R for example, you know, you need to be,

someone needs to be responsible for going in and validating that data and making

sure that that’s right. And that should be done on a routine basis.

If you wait for the end of the year when you’re doing all your reporting and all

this bad data has been accumulating, uh, or,

or maybe there’s a problem with the meter and you don’t realize it,

it’s really hard to go back and clean it and get usable results now that you’ve

aggregated all this large amount of data. So, uh,

I do think a key piece is having those routines and saying, okay,

on a weekly basis, or whatever it may be for your organization, certainly no,

no greater than monthly basis,

because otherwise it just gets too big and it’s hard to see those kinds of

issues. Um, but having a a, a strong da data validation routine,

uh, is, is really key over the long run. Uh, and it’s hard.

Folks are tend to not wanna make time to do it. Cause like I said,

they’re putting out fires and they’re doing all sorts of other things, but,

you know, even an hour a week can make a big difference, uh, you know,

on that front and help you tell that story better. Uh, you know,

cuz that is key.

What good is all this data collection and all of your efforts if you’re not

passing that along to the rest of the organization? To John’s point, I mean,

you hit the nail on the head. I, I couldn’t, I, I’m,

I’m restating it simply to emphasize how important it’s, it’s,

it’s absolutely the case.

Uh, John,

you said something that just stuck with me and, uh,

and Mark you just completely reinforced it with, with, uh, what you just said,

Joan, you talked about, uh, buying all the toys and, uh,

and yes, you can buy all the toys and, uh,

I know you can collect all of this data and what happens

if you are not willing to commit to

this level of data collection that,

that you’ve created and then following through with the analysis.

I mean, what, what happens to a company, uh,

competitively if they aren’t willing to really commit to that? And John,

since you brought up the toy thing, why don’t you start us off on this one?

Yeah. So I think, um, I think one of the things to understand, and,

and may this, this might sound a little bit controversial, but I don’t think,

um, I don’t think non-use of data is optional anymore.

I think that to be competitive, when we,

when we started this discussion right at the top,

we talked about the challenges facing fleet operators in terms of rising fuel

costs and inflation and cost of living, ultimately, that squeezes margin,

right? So I don’t think you have a choice anymore. I think that,

that if you are going to remain competitive,

whether you are working in the service sector, whether you are working in the,

the, the delivery sector, irrespective if you are operating a fleet,

you are representing a cost to the business and

using data to manage your costs.

Uh, as I say, I don’t think that’s optional anymore. The good news is, it,

it, it does require time, as Mark said, it’s, it,

it is an investment even if it’s an hour a week or, or a couple of hours a week.

But the good news to me is that your vendors are a rich

source of information and you can outline what it

is you are trying to achieve, articulate that to your vendors,

and have them present data in a way that is more

easily consumable by yourself.

It’s not as if you just have this raw set of information.

You can’t leverage vendors that are supporting you. Uh,

and, and having them,

first of all understand what it is you’re trying to achieve.

So we talk about the, the, you know, the man, the data management plan,

and I talked about communicating it. It’s not just internal communication,

it’s articulating it to vendors. They’re an important source of information,

information. So having them understand what it is you are trying to achieve,

and then furnishing you with information in both a format and a timeline

that enables you to make intelligent decisions. I mentioned that the, the,

the toy analogy, it is there is,

there is no point in having data if you’re not gonna do something with it,

right? And, and, and I think we have become, um,

obsessed with big data as a general term. Uh,

and I think in times it can be overused,

but there really isn’t a lot of point in having such a rip source of information

if you are not then going to do something with it. Uh, to Mark’s point,

whether it’s setting yourself a target to reduce idle time or setting yourself a

goal to reduce fuel consumption, or simply looking at, I’m,

I’m going to make sure that I get more stocks per mile out of this

vehicle than I have done traditionally because that makes it more efficient and

makes my operating unit costs come down. And again,

leveraging vendors to help you in that crusade will aid

you enormously. It’s not, you don’t have to be a data,

you know, expert. Um, you need to have,

you need to have an understanding of what data can do for you, right?

But then you can leverage sources to help you because you don’t

wanna spend your time, in my opinion,

collecting lots and lots of data and not having time to then do something with

it, right? Ideally,

what you want is data served up in a clear format that enables you

to quickly pinpoint where are the important decisions that I need to make?

Where are my issues? Where are the opportunities within this fleet? Uh, and,

and spending that time, uh,

is where you’ll see your operating costs come down.

It will see your safety levels improve. And,

and ultimately to pick up on something that Mark said earlier,

I think that your fleet drivers will appreciate that they’ll ultimately be more

satisfied that they’re operating in a safer fleet,

a more efficient fleet that gives them, uh,

an opportunity to potentially be rewarded for doing the right thing.

Yeah, I, I, I couldn’t agree more with that. Uh, I mean,

I think you basically hit the nail on the head. You know, the one thing I’ll,

I’ll, I’ll sort of try to add to that, you know, is that, you know,

kind of what we’ve mentioned a little bit is that the data has context.

You know, and so to your point, um, you don’t,

as the fleet leader and the fleet manager, you don’t need to be a necessarily a,

a a data scientist or a data expert, but you need to, like you said,

you need to know what you’re reading and you need to be able to understand what

it’s telling you, right? What does the, what does this really mean? And so,

and so you do need to have some familiarity with it, but you,

you don’t need to be the person who needs, who is able of producing, uh,

those analyses, right? Um, and certainly leveraging your vendors is,

is key,

especially when you can create a relationship via contract formally or

informally, uh, in which you can incentivize them,

that your success is their success, right? And so in instead of,

you know, uh, yeah,

of course we’re gonna make sure this data looks like you should buy more

vehicles from us, right? Right. We, we, we obviously wanna avoid that trap, um,

but in as much as you can create a relationship in which you’re, you know,

again, when, when, when they do well, you’re doing well and vice versa.

And that is very achievable. Well, well, now you’ve tapped into, you know,

a gold mine, really there. Um, and so with that in mind, it,

it’s really important that the folks, though,

the folks you are deploying to be the data experts,

whether it’s vendors, whether it’s in-house folks, um,

who you’re relying to produce these reports,

to produce these analyses that you’re gonna read,

they also have to have some level of context,

maybe not the industry expertise that you have, right? Um, but,

but someone who’s been working on pharmaceuticals their entire life is not gonna

come into a fleet or transportation situation, cold Turkey,

be able to produce the kinds of insights that they will once they’ve gained some

insight into the fleet industry, right? And so, and so that’s important too.

Giving them some training and some knowledge and some information and some

background. Having them understand the keys and the fundamentals of the,

of the work you do and the business you do is really important so that they’re

able to produce, uh, the kinds of insights that are valuable to you.

Um, you know, that’s, you know, to be frank, to your, to your point, um,

you know, John, is that, you know, and I say this carefully,

but it, you know,

I think the world of management has been way out in front of the use of data.

That’s why this big data term gets overused, right? We’ve, you, you’ve been,

folks have been the Amazons and the UPSs,

they’ve been leveraging data like this for many, many, many years now.

And if we’re being frank,

the fleet industry is sort of just now beginning to catch up over the last,

you know, five or 10 years or so. Uh, and so there is that, that catch up,

uh, you know, that’s happening. Um,

but now’s the time because now is,

is when we’re seeing the rest of the world essentially invest into fleet, right?

Between the ev technology, uh,

between what we’re seeing in telematics and on the, in the internet of thing,

investments. I think that market as a whole is recognizing that fleet, uh,

and transportation are sort of the next big things, the next, uh,

big opportunities. And so we’re getting a focus on it. Uh, like,

like there hasn’t been in 40 years, so now is your time, the spotlight’s on you,

maybe folks are not tapping on your shoulder asking about EVs or other things of

that nature.

When was the last time they tapped on your shoulder and wanted to talk about

fleet replacement, right? So, so, so now’s the time.

Take advantage of the 15 minutes of fame you got, uh,

and tell that story well with the data so that you can, you know, have,

you know,

make some real change and make some real improvements for your organization.

That’s great. And, uh, this is a fantastic discussion,

but we need to switch gears because we’re getting, uh,

questions from our attendees,

and I wanna make sure we get through as many as we can.

So let’s jump into that. And John, I think this first question is,

uh, a good one for you.

My drivers have pushed back against the idea of monitoring them.

How can I get them on board?

That’s a great question. I mean, let’s be honest, none, none of us, uh,

none of us like the, the big brother syndrome. I think that,

that Mark referred to earlier, but I think there’s a couple of,

a couple of factors. One is that, um,

as I mentioned earlier about using,

using data to identify opportunities for driver, uh,

improvement there,

the flip side of that is offering incentives for good,

for good driving behavior and good driving standards and good use of the unit.

So I think that, that being open to say to, to a driver,

look, look, we reward people for great driving.

We reward them for safety standards. We reward them for, for unit efficiency.

So I think that’s one factor. The other, uh, and I think Mark touched on it,

more often than not,

telematics actually protects the driver in the event of an incident.

And I think being able to show to a driver, look, I’m not checking up on you,

I’m actually concerned about your wellbeing and safety,

and we use data to exonerate drivers more than we do to punish

them. So I think it explain the real context of what you’re trying to do,

um, potentially considering some sort of reward for, for good behavior. But,

but again, it comes back to this, this, this, um,

point of communication. It’s not just sharing across your organization,

it’s also sharing with your, your drivers why,

why do we have a policy around data?

Why is it that we’re looking at these things?

And ultimately it’s for their benefit and protection.

So I think rather than present it as a negative,

lean into that discussion and explain all the positives of,

of why data can actually make their lives better.

Okay, great. Thanks. Um, this next question,

mark, this one’s a good fit for you. Uh, we are looking for a new fleet manager.

Do we need to hire someone with a data management background?

No, I think as, as John said earlier, you know, I,

I don’t think that you need a data scientist, someone, a data scientist degree,

let’s say, uh, for your next fleet manager. I, I,

I don’t think you need to go to that level. Um,

having those kinds of skills within your team or access to them via a vendor

that, that I would recommend.

But I would actually focus on a fleet manager who has the experience and the

know-how of managing a fleet as much as, uh, as feasible. However,

that does include having some ability and comfort and familiarity

with, with using data and leveraging data. Again, as John said,

being able to understand what’s presented to them in a report or an analysis and

go out and make some decisions and make them actionable, do something with it.

And so the answer there is sort of in the middle, no, we don’t,

we don’t need someone with a formal degree or, or that sort of a thing.

But certainly you need someone with familiarity. I mean,

I would not hire a fleet manager in today’s world who, for example, has never,

never opened up Microsoft Excel in their life, right?

That would be the other extreme.

And I would say that would be way too far to the other end. So, you know,

you certainly need someone with a certain level of sophistication, comfort,

familiarity with using data. But you know, you, you don’t,

you don’t need them to be able to, uh, uh, develop the, you know,

the next algorithm or, or that sort of a thing that’s gonna save, uh,

the human race kind of a thing, right? We don’t need all that.

Awesome, thanks. And, uh, uh, this next question,

uh, John, I think this is a good one for you.

We’ve just started transitioning to EVs.

How should that change the way we use data?

Um, I think in some ways it doesn’t change. Um,

now typically EVs have, uh,

come stacked with additional technology that actually

in theory presents you with even more data. But,

but some of the things that Mark talked about and I talked about in terms of

vehicle maintenance, lifecycle planning, um,

route optimization, uh, and transport management,

I don’t think those fundamentally change whether you’ve got an EV or whether

you’ve got a, an internal combustion engine vehicle. Um,

now I’m now gonna potentially contradict that a little bit.

EVs are still relatively new, and they’re still,

and certainly in the commercial vehicle space, um, they’re very,

they’re very new. So I think that, that if,

if a fleet manager is considering or is in the process of shifting to EVs

for very good reasons from a sustainability standpoint,

there is even more need from a maintenance, uh,

of the vehicle perspective to have a real eyes on and hands on approach to that

data because it is new territory. Um, it it,

in terms of the commercial vehicle space, so I’ve,

I don’t wanna contradict myself, but even though I have a little bit there,

I think the fundamental principles remain the same. If anything,

EVs on the maintenance side, and I’ll defer certainly if Mark wants to,

to add anything to that. I think on the maintenance side, it’s still,

it’s still new ground, so there’s a lot to be learned,

and data can help you with that.

Great. Thanks. Um, this next question, mark, I’m gonna send this one to you.

We’re feeling overwhelmed with all of our data.

Do you have any tips for how to deal with data overload?

Yeah, so, uh, you know, as I said earlier, try to focus on the critical few.

What are the key performance indicators that are important to your business or

to your organization or your role?

We talked about downtime or the opposite of it, availability rate, uh, you know,

is it work, order, turn time, uh, you know, is it your,

your replacement backlog, whatever the KPIs that are key to you, you know, zone,

zone in on a few of them and focus on those. If you have some objectives,

some goals for the year, again, keep those light two to five. Same with KPIs,

you know, three to five of the ones that really drive your business.

I know that if we hit the target on these, we’re doing well.

And so by focusing only on the, the few indicators that you, that really,

you know, make the difference or are driving the change you need,

then you can focus only on the data, uh, that’s,

that’s relevant to developing those indicators, those metrics, right? And so,

and now you can kind of screen out the rest of it, you know, storage is cheap,

much cheaper these days than years ago when we started.

And so you can keep that stuff aside in case it becomes valuable to you down the

road with some future analysis or some future initiative,

and maybe you want some historical data, but, but you know, really for this,

from, from a mental perspective and from a an analysis perspective,

essentially screen out that data which is not relevant to the metrics that

you’re measuring that are key to the objectives you’re trying to achieve.

And that really is the, is is the best advice I could give.

And then secondarily, uh, you know, if you’re not using something,

turn it off for now. Suspend it, right? If you, if, I mean,

if you’re not touching it even slightly, uh, like, you know,

some of these ideas are really great ideas, you know, uh, the,

the tire pressure or something of that nature, wonderful things can be very,

very valuable. But if you’re not ready for that, because you’re still getting,

you know, still using in your objectives, more key data, more,

more fundamental data, I should say, like maybe your utilization, right? Well,

then that’s okay. You’re just not ready for that.

Now that doesn’t mean it won’t be valuable to you down the road, right?

Focus on the things that you’re doing now,

step one of the plan and then grow it each year. You can kind of grow upon that.

So I really think that’s important,

and I’ve seen that work for many organizations, so,

Okay. Great. Um, and John, here’s, uh,

another question for you.

My finance team is worried about the expense of a data management program.

What are the ways that we can show them the potential cost savings?

Great question. Um, for a start, some of,

some of the data points are not, do actually come free, relatively speaking.

So, um, certainly from, from the best parts perspective,

we give data to our customers as part of the service that we provide,

um, in support of our toll management program.

So one aspect is to look at what data can you get as that’s just

part and parcel of your, your day-to-day business. And,

and you may find that you don’t have to pay an additional amount for it for

data or the tools to capture data where you do have to pay for something or buy

something. I think the answer is, is twofold. One,

there’s enough reference points out there now that have shown, um,

that if you’ve got a good maintenance program and if you’ve got a good route

planning program, you are going to reduce your costs.

So there are external reference points that you can turn to.

I think the other thing, uh,

and this this really ties in with some of the points that Mark has made,

is set yourself some goals. Don’t just sit there and say to the finance team,

well, I wanna spend X amount of money and I’m gonna get data,

sit there and make a commitment. I’m gonna,

I’m gonna reduce my fuel consumption by X percent.

That per year generates this amount of cost saving,

of which I’m only looking to spend 10% on the tools that will gimme the

data to enable me to hit that goal. So again, it’s, it, it,

I think there’s a few things that, that run through this discussion. One is,

do something with the data, right? Don’t just have it, do something with it.

Make a commitment with it. Show that you are going to reduce idle time,

maintenance wear, and tear fuel consumption, um, and,

and set those commitments. And then frankly,

the tools will pay for themselves tenfold. Um, and I think that’s,

but again, it comes back to something that Mark said earlier. It is part,

you have to have a plan, right? You have to know what it is you’re trying to do.

Um, and then you need to communicate it and communicate It is also making

commitments.

Here’s the deliverables that I’m going to give to the organization through the

deployment of technology to give me data to make informed decisions.

That’s part of a plan. It’s part of a commitment, it’s communicated,

it’s understood. And again, I think that,

that they would find that the tools will pay for themselves tenfold.

Okay, great. And, uh, I think we have time to fit in one more question.

And John, this is another one that I think is good for you,

and Mark wouldn’t appraise me if you have something to add to this one too.

We don’t use much data now. Do you have any suggestions on how to get started?

Um, I would, I’ll, I’ll keep that this my answer short.

I would pick up on something that Mark said, keep it simple. Start small.

Don’t start as if you’re going to, you know, introduce world peace.

Sit there and say, I’m going to do one thing or two things. That’s,

that’s how I’m gonna start. Don’t be afraid of starting.

Don’t equally be afraid of starting with something and then going, well,

actually I’m gonna pivot and do something slightly different. That’s fine.

That means you’ve learned something. That’s right. Tremendous. But I think,

you know, what’s the best way to get started? First of all,

get started because other people are doing it,

which means they’re more efficient than you. And start small and start simple.

Mark, over to you.

Yeah. Yeah. I, I completely agree with that, that, that would be,

that would be exactly how I would get started.

And then I honestly think that step two is depending on where you are as an

organization, if you’re still recording things in Excel sheets and notes,

and you’re not leveraging one of the softwares or technologies out there, uh,

that would be the other thing that I would add to it,

because they’ve come so far, they’re, they’re, they’re very reasonably cost,

uh, uh, you know, priced rather. And so they,

they can go a long way into helping you do what John just said.

Don’t negate any of that. Start with something, one thing, one small, um,

but that’ll help you to record the data. And usually these days, um,

pretty much any program like, like John’s best pe you know, they,

they’ll have builtin analytics for you. And so they’ll,

they’ll really hold your hand and help you along the way, uh, into,

into gaining some insight using that data. So yeah, couldn’t agree more.

Awesome. That’s great. And with that, we are out of time,

so we need to wrap up. Mark. John,

thank you so much for being here today and sharing all of your amazing

insights with us. This has been absolutely fantastic. Now, uh,

for all of our attendees,

if you asked a question during the q and a that we didn’t get to,

you will get an answer via email.

And don’t forget that today’s webinar will be available on demand and you

receive, uh, an email that gives you continued access.

Please feel free to reach out if you have any questions about the presentation.

And everyone have a great day.

Thanks.

Thank you.