Sav­ings at the pump off­set by increased vehi­cle costs, and pos­si­ble supply-chain delays.

ARI’s 2014 Indus­try Out­look, the annual pub­li­ca­tion pro­duced by the company’s Strate­gic Con­sult­ing Team, gives fleet man­agers insight into the trends and oppor­tu­ni­ties expected to affect their fleet oper­a­tions through­out the year. This year’s Out­look focuses on how total cost of own­er­ship (TCO) will be influ­enced by the approach­ing dead­lines for the revised fed­eral Cor­po­rate Aver­age Fuel Econ­omy (CAFE) stan­dards, which aim to increase fuel effi­ciency and reduce CO2 emis­sions. Read more

NAFA announced the cre­ation of three new staff posi­tions, as well as the realign­ment and reti­tling of many exist­ing staff positions.

“For sev­eral years, NAFA has had a very aggres­sive strate­gic plan that called for the cre­ation of many new pro­grams, as well as the expan­sion of exist­ing pro­grams,” NAFA Exec­u­tive Direc­tor Phillip E. Russo, CAE said. “Dur­ing that same time, NAFA has expe­ri­enced a shift in vol­un­teer capac­ity, result­ing in the need to add staff and con­trac­tors to com­plete work projects. The addi­tion of new staff mem­bers, as well as the realign­ment of exist­ing posi­tions, puts all the right peo­ple in the right seats to help NAFA real­ize its goals, objec­tives, and vision.”

Read more about NAFA’s strate­gic realignment.

Win­ter brings many dan­gers for motorists, with one of the most threat­en­ing being slip­pery and hard-to-spot black ice.

Black ice is tricky. It hides in shade and shad­ows, caus­ing spin-outs before dri­vers know what hit them.

Black ice forms when rain hits freez­ing cold pave­ment. If sleet or freez­ing rain is in the fore­cast, be extra care­ful on the road. If there’s been sig­nif­i­cant snow melt dur­ing the day, black ice can form at night when tem­per­a­tures drop. Dry pave­ment with shiny patches are sure signs of black ice.

READ MORE

Ford Motor Com­pany will add 350 new jobs and invest $80 mil­lion in its Ken­tucky Truck Plant to meet grow­ing demand for Ford F-Series Super Duty trucks.

The $80 mil­lion will pay for facil­ity upgrades, retool­ing and increased capac­ity to meet mar­ket demand. The invest­ment and new employ­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties are esti­mated to result in a 15 per­cent increase in pro­duc­tion capac­ity, or approx­i­mately 55,000 units.

READ MORE

Over­head costs are a con­cern for any fleet in the ser­vice indus­try. Labor costs can be specif­i­cally wor­ri­some as they equate to a large amount of that over­head cost. The imple­men­ta­tion of a GPS track­ing sys­tem, like GPS Insight, will reduce costs.

Mon­i­tor hours worked from the begin­ning to end of each day, opti­mize routes for max­i­mum effi­ciency, reduce vehi­cle down-time, and more that will elim­i­nate unnec­es­sary pay­roll dollars.

READ MORE

Used cars should get cheaper in 2014 after five years of con­sis­tently ris­ing prices, but it’s not an indi­ca­tion of a burst­ing bub­ble, NADA Used Car Guide’s Jonathan Banks said at the National Auto­mo­bile Deal­ers Asso­ci­a­tion annual con­fer­ence. Used car prices are about 10% higher than the aver­age price dur­ing the past two decades.

Dis­tracted dri­ving takes Cen­ter stage in Wash­ing­ton on Thurs­day when the Sen­ate Com­mit­tee on Com­merce, Sci­ence and Trans­porta­tion, chaired by Sen. John D. Rock­e­feller (D-WV), hosts a sum­mit on tech­no­log­i­cal solu­tions to dis­tracted dri­ving — “Over-Connected and Behind the Wheel.”

Reports sug­gest the Rock­e­feller, who has focused on the issue for many years, called the sum­mit because of his frus­tra­tion over lack of progress on the issue, and hopes that the threat alone of inter­ven­tion by his com­mit­tee could push the devel­op­ment of solu­tions to the prob­lem by block­ing all non-emergency communication.

READ MORE

Fleets that don’t make red-light, speed or school bus stop arm­safety cam­era vio­la­tions part of their dri­vers’ safety pro­file are run­ning the risk of multi-million dol­lar lia­bil­ity costs, says Vin­cent Brigidi, pres­i­dent and chief oper­at­ing offi­cer of The CEI Group, Inc.

Accord­ing to Amer­i­can Traf­fic Solu­tions (ATS) Fleet Ser­vices, a lead­ing provider of fleet toll and vio­la­tion man­age­ment solu­tions, the num­ber of road safety cam­era vio­la­tions issued to fleet vehi­cles has soared over the last five years.

The prob­lem for fleets is these types of tick­ets are issued to the own­ers of the vehi­cles – usu­ally the fleet or its leas­ing com­pany – and not to the dri­vers and rarely appear on dri­vers’ Motor Vehi­cle Records (MVR), Mr. Brigidi notes. READ MORE

With the launch of Lease­Plan Canada, Lease­Plan now has com­plete North Amer­i­can cov­er­age with loca­tions in the US, Mex­ico and Canada.

Jon Toups, chief sales and mar­ket­ing offi­cer for Lease­Plan USA says, “In addi­tion to the full port­fo­lio of ser­vices, Lease­Plan Canada and Lease­Plan USA have part­nered to cre­ate a regional fleet man­age­ment solu­tion that includes con­sol­i­dated data and one-point-of-contact account man­age­ment.” READ MORE