August 11, 2014

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Editor's Analysis & Top Industry News


Sutton_Janice Fleeting Opportunities!

Get smart(er): NAFA’s new, just pub­lished Fleet Infor­ma­tion Man­age­ment Guide gives you a thor­ough review of the fun­da­men­tals of fleet infor­ma­tion man­age­ment (includ­ing fleet infor­ma­tion man­age­ment sys­tems, FIMS) and reviews fleet sys­tem selec­tion and tech­nol­ogy options to consider.

Be mind­ful: AFLA reser­va­tion dead­line: If you haven’t booked your hotel room for the AFLA Con­fer­ence, you’ll want to do that before the reser­va­tion dead­line on Fri­day, August 15th. AFLA has nego­ti­ated a spe­cial rate for atten­dees of $175/night and the block is fill­ing up quickly so book your room today!

Check out: Fleet prod­uct and ser­vice providers: Are you seek­ing to expand your sales efforts to the fleet mar­ket? Fleet Man­age­ment Weekly would like to under­stand your objec­tives and talk with you about how we can part­ner with you to mul­ti­ply your mar­ket­ing mes­sage. Con­nect with Ted Roberts, VP and Chief Con­tent Offi­cer, to talk strategy.

Jan­ice Sut­ton
Exec­u­tive Editor


US and Canada flag LeasePlan: Best Practices for North American Fleets

An effi­cient North Amer­i­can fleet strat­egy doesn’t just hap­pen overnight. It takes exten­sive fleet knowl­edge, hours of care­ful plan­ning and even more time ensur­ing things oper­ate as intended. Mas­ter­ing rules and reg­u­la­tions that vary by coun­try, province and sea­son can be a chal­lenge. So we sat down with the experts at Lease­Plan Canada to uncover some best prac­tices for fleets that span North America.

Down­load 5 Best Prac­tices for North Amer­i­can Fleets.


pattullo-550

VIDEO: 75 Years of Progress at Wheels

With 75 years in the Fleet biz, Wheels has seen a mul­ti­tude of changes — includ­ing more diver­sity of client types, and more new ways to serve clients — but their basic value propo­si­tion remains the same.

VIDEO: NAFA Advances Fleet Careers
battersby-richard
  NAFA’s CAFM Program Can Make All the Difference
 

This expert fleet man­ager cred­its NAFA’s Cer­ti­fied Auto­mo­tive Fleet Man­ager pro­gram with help­ing to advance his career — and says that the pro­gram has become more impor­tant to the indus­try than ever before.


Click here to watch video
VIDEO: Endless Opportunities for Involvement
weichman-doug
  28 Years of Opportunities, Thanks to NAFA
 

This indus­try expert cred­its 28 years of NAFA involve­ment with end­less oppor­tu­ni­ties to improve and expand his career — includ­ing train­ing, net­work­ing, cer­ti­fi­ca­tion, and more.


Click here to read more



The Fleet Spot


Women in Fleet Management Guerilla Mentoring for Women at AFLA Conference

The Auto­mo­tive Fleet & Leas­ing Asso­ci­a­tion (AFLA) is once again excited to have Women in Fleet Man­age­ment (WIFM) kick off its Annual Con­fer­ence. The WIFM sess­sion is open to all con­fer­ence reg­is­trants and this year will fea­ture Kathy Kor­man Frey facil­i­tat­ing an edu­ca­tional ses­sion on her sys­tem of Guerilla Men­tor­ing. Make sure to come early and catch this great ses­sion on Sun­day, Sep­tem­ber 7th start­ing at 4:30 PM.

READ MORE

Todd Davis New NTEA Conference Highlights Industry Opportunities and Challenges

NTEA’s Exec­u­tive Lead­er­ship Sum­mit offers key insights into rel­e­vant global eco­nomic forces, polit­i­cal real­i­ties and pos­si­bil­i­ties, and timely busi­ness issues that can directly impact your com­pany today and in the near future. Hear valu­able insights which can sup­port your strate­gic plan­ning efforts by min­i­miz­ing risk and improv­ing profitability.

Octo­ber 14 – 15, JW Mar­riott, Las Vegas

Reg­is­ter now!

Top­ics cov­ered include:
• Antic­i­pated devel­op­ments in truck tech­nolo­gies
• Mar­ket out­looks and fore­casts
• The emerg­ing global land­scape
• Inno­va­tions in the work truck indus­try
• Lead­er­ship and man­age­ment strategies

Read a mes­sage from the NTEA Board of Trustees, Todd Davis.

Montreal Register NOW for NAFA EFMS Montreal & Save!

Attend NAFA’s Essen­tials of Fleet Man­age­ment Sem­i­nar (at reg­u­lar price) and bring your col­leagues and team mem­bers for HALF-PRICE! That’s almost $350 in sav­ings! Save Even More When You Reg­is­ter By August 11!

Mon­treal, Canada — Sep­tem­ber 9–11, 2014

New to fleet — or know a col­league who is new to the fleet man­age­ment pro­fes­sion? This sem­i­nar will teach you the build­ing blocks to help you run an effi­cient fleet. We will pro­vide you the oppor­tu­nity to learn the fun­da­men­tal prin­ci­ples and prac­tices of suc­cess­ful fleet man­age­ment. Also a great chance to con­nect with other fleet pro­fes­sion­als face-to-face!

READ MORE to learn why you should attend!

Fleet Mobility Management  
Thibault Alleyn, Fleet Logistics

More and more com­pa­nies, espe­cially those where fleet man­age­ment and travel func­tions coin­cide, are con­sid­er­ing their total mobil­ity needs and look­ing for exter­nal guid­ance and sup­port, but many are unsure how to approach the subject.

That’s the view from fleet man­age­ment provider, Fleet Logis­tics, which has over 130,000 cars under con­tract with major cor­po­rate cus­tomers across 24 coun­tries in Europe.

Thibault Alleyn, Direc­tor of Fleet and Mobil­ity Con­sult­ing at Fleet Logis­tics, con­firmed that the com­pany is increas­ingly being asked to pro­vide guid­ance and sup­port about broader cor­po­rate mobil­ity. “We are def­i­nitely see­ing a surge of inter­est towards a more holis­tic view on mobil­ity which clearly goes beyond the pro­vi­sion of com­pany cars. But many cor­po­ra­tions are still shy­ing away from the topic as it requires a good under­stand­ing of mobil­ity needs and avail­able solu­tions on the mar­ket. It is our role to facil­i­tate this and exe­cute the project steps,” he said.

READ MORE

 
Fleet Technology  

Pro­gres­sive was the first U.S. insurer to install a device called the Snap­shot into car dash­boards to mon­i­tor their cus­tomers’ dri­ving habits over a 30-day period. Based on their mileage and hard brakes, cus­tomers could be eli­gi­ble for a dis­count on their monthly payments.

Now Pro­gres­sive has chal­lenged more than a dozen tech entre­pre­neurs and mobile devel­op­ers to take the next step: track when a dri­ver slams on the brakes or speeds with a sim­ple smart­phone app it can launch next year — an app that will be as accu­rate as the Snapshot.

READ MORE to learn about the apps

 
Driver Behavior  

While many par­ents often con­cen­trate on what kind of vehi­cle will keep their teen dri­vers the safest, it’s poor behav­iors they exhibit behind the wheel that make the biggest dif­fer­ence in safety and teens learn many of those habits from their parents.

“While par­ents may think they’re set­ting a good exam­ple for their teens, these find­ings sug­gest that some par­ents engage in unsafe dri­ving habits more often than they might admit,” said Dave Melton, dri­ving safety expert with Lib­erty Mutual Insur­ance and man­ag­ing direc­tor of global safety.

KEEP READING to learn about the study results.




Fleet Trends & Issues


cei new logoBellevue WA Names CEI for Government Fleet Accident Management

The City of Belle­vue, WA, has part­nered with the CEI Group, Inc. (CEI) to pro­vide acci­dent man­age­ment ser­vices for its munic­i­pal fleet of 700 vehicles.

The agree­ment calls for CEI to pro­vide auto body repairs for all of the city’s depart­ments, includ­ing its police, fire, util­i­ties, and parks and com­mu­nity ser­vices departments.

In nam­ing CEI, Tom Wall of the city’s fleet man­age­ment team cited the company’s abil­ity to stream­line the fleet’s admin­is­tra­tive processes by review­ing body repair esti­mates, track­ing repair costs, and pro­vid­ing detailed invoices directly to the city’s risk man­age­ment staff.

READ MORE about the agreement.

gps-trackingTop Capabilities Advanced GPS Tracking Software Should Have

If you are cur­rently eval­u­at­ing GPS track­ing solu­tions, then you already know how many dif­fer­ent options are out there. It can be a chal­lenge to decide which capa­bil­i­ties are most impor­tant and which you can do with­out. When com­par­ing the dif­fer­ences between providers, make sure that the poten­tial solu­tions have these top capa­bil­i­ties that every GPS track­ing solu­tion should have.

READ MORE

distracted-drivingDistracted Driving Hits Home — Hard

Moments after leav­ing USA TODAY’s offices in sub­ur­ban Vir­ginia on Sat­ur­day evening,  Senior Edi­tor John Siniff hopped on Inter­state 66 for a quick drive home. The skies were over­cast, a light mist was falling, and the sun was begin­ning to set.

A young woman speed­ing along in the lanes behind him was lost in a phone con­ver­sa­tion when the 2,500 pounds of metal she was pilot­ing slammed into his vehi­cle from behind.

He never even heard the tires squeal. Her brakes didn’t strain — because she hadn’t applied them.

READ MORE to find out what happened.

NAFA IFA 2014 logoNAFA’s 2014 International Fleet Academy Touts Hard-Hitting Global Fleet Education

NAFA’s 2014 Inter­na­tional Fleet Acad­emy is the pre­mier global fleet con­fer­ence for a good rea­son. Fleet pro­fes­sion­als who attend the IFA learn from the best and most knowl­edge­able indi­vid­u­als on the sub­ject of global fleet man­age­ment. Atten­dees can share infor­ma­tion with col­leagues in an inti­mate set­ting arranged by NAFA, the most trusted name in fleet.

From dis­cus­sions regard­ing cloud-based loca­tion intel­li­gence soft­ware plat­forms, to fleet cen­tral­iza­tion ver­sus region­al­ized struc­ture, stan­dard­iza­tion of goods and ser­vices, staffing, how to iden­tify and visit the right regional peo­ple, and more, IFA pro­vides unpar­al­leled edu­ca­tion for fleet pro­fes­sion­als with inter­na­tional oversight.

READ MORE

Fleet Vehicle Safety  

After a week of scares about car hack­ing at the Black Hat con­fer­ence, a group of altru­is­tic coders and mem­bers of the secu­rity research com­mu­nity have come together to demand dig­i­tally safer automobiles.

They listed five require­ments for man­u­fac­tur­ers in a two-page open let­ter released today at the Def Con con­fer­ence tak­ing place in Las Vegas this week­end. These include manda­tory test­ing of the dig­i­tal tools within cars, a respon­si­ble dis­clo­sure pro­gram so researchers can safely divulge vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties in vehi­cle soft­ware and a black box in every model to record events. READ MORE about the secure updates of that soft­ware are also nec­es­sary, accord­ing to the signatories.

 
Fleet Sustainability  

Ship­ping mil­lions of pack­ages around the world on air­planes and trucks is a carbon-intensive busi­ness that deliv­ery giants such as FedEx and United Par­cel Ser­vice have strug­gled to con­trol. In the past, they’ve fallen far short of goals to use more hybrid-electric alter­na­tives (even as FedEx pro­moted its envi­ron­men­tal efforts), as Bloomberg News reported in December.

Now, the ship­ping indus­try appears to be mak­ing some sub­tle progress. In recent months, three of the biggest deliv­ery companies—FedEx, UPS, and DHL have released envi­ron­men­tal data that show their over­all emis­sions of global warm­ing gases are declin­ing slightly. This is par­tic­u­larly notable at FedEx and UPS, where a slight dip in emis­sions has come amid over­all busi­ness growth.

READ MORE

 
America's Highways  

Whether in traffic-congested Cal­i­for­nia, or in Snow­belt states like Michi­gan, the nation’s road­ways are in rough shape. But the need to fix America’s road­ways is about the only thing tax­pay­ers can agree on. How to pay for those repairs is an issue divid­ing the coun­try, accord­ing to a new Asso­ci­ated Press-GfKpoll.

A solid major­ity, six out of 10 of those sur­veyed, said that the need for good high­ways, rail­roads and air­ports jus­ti­fies their cost. And the fig­ure goes even higher, to 62%, among those who drive reg­u­larly. Even among those who get behind the wheel less than once a week, the fig­ure is a solid 55%. READ MORE about the sur­vey, and what Amer­i­cans do — and don’t — agree upon.





Fleet Management Resources 
AmeriFleet
Offering a nationwide vehicle delivery and relocation service; serving the corporate and commercial fleet industry.
LeasePlan
LeasePlan is the world's leading high-touch service provider for vehicle leasing and fleet management.
PHH
Customizing global fleet management to achieve your goals.
ARI
Driven fleet professionals. Driving results.
NAFA
NAFA is the association for the diverse vehicle fleet management profession regardless of organizational type, geographic location, or fleet composition.
The CEI Group Inc.
North America's largest accident management and fleet driver safety company.
GPS Insight
GPS Insight offers GPS tracking solutions to meet your organization's unique requirements and challenges.
PARS
PARS' mission is to provide you with high-quality service at competitive prices for all of your transportation needs.