(Photo: John Martin, Mercury Associates)
By Fleet Management Weekly Staff
December 4, 2024
As technology advances and the fleet industry continues to recover post-pandemic, the field of fleet management is rapidly evolving. Electrification mandates and supply chain issues lead fleets to rely on expert consultants to navigate this ever-changing landscape. A fleet management consultant can provide unbiased advice, identify inefficiencies, and help fleets meet their goals. Unlike fleet management companies, consultants don’t earn revenue based on their clients’ money, making them objective advisors to reduce costs and improve performance.
One such organization is Mercury Associates, a fleet management consulting firm with experts who are singularly focused on fleet management. Mercury offers a variety of consulting services including comprehensive reviews, fleet replacement planning, fleet right-sizing/right typing, electrification planning, and more. They rely on advanced data analytics services and tools to extract actionable insights to boost efficiency and optimize spending.
We sat down with John Martin, a manager at Mercury Associates, to learn more about how the company is helping fleets navigate a rapidly evolving industry. Here’s what we learned:
Tell us a bit about Mercury Associates and the services that you provide.
Mercury is the largest dedicated independent fleet management consulting firm in North America, founded over 20 years ago. During this time, we have served more than 650 clients across public and private sectors. What sets us apart is our specialization. We are not generalists – fleet management is 100% what we do. All of Mercury’s consultants have prior experience managing fleets in some capacity.
We are also completely independent and vendor-neutral, meaning we don’t resell products or services. This allows us to provide objective, unbiased advice that prioritizes the best interests of our clients. Our expertise spans virtually all aspects of fleet management. For example, we conduct comprehensive 360-degree fleet assessments to identify opportunities for increased efficiency, cost savings, and improved operations.
Additional common projects we assist our clients with include fleet electrification, fleet software selection, implementation, replacement planning, rightsizing, etc. Whether it’s improving day-to-day operations or preparing for future challenges, Mercury is there to help with any issue you’re having in the fleet management space.
What are your client’s most significant concerns and challenges in the fleet industry? How does Mercury Associates help them overcome these challenges and concerns?
Most of our clients cite supply chain challenges, particularly in the heavy-duty sector, where delays can stretch two to three years. While we hope this is a temporary issue, we’ve helped clients mitigate procurement delays through strategies such as fleet rightsizing and right-typing. Organizations may be able to optimize their fleet without impacting their overall mission. We also assist in selecting more readily available vehicle types, such as lighter-duty options, to avoid prolonged wait times.
Replacement planning is another key area we address, helping fleets establish predictable schedules for vehicle replacement to avoid unplanned costs. These are just a few steps that fleets can take to mitigate these procurement issues.
In what ways has the fleet landscape changed in the post-COVID world?
Procurement delays have highlighted the need for better fleet utilization. Before the pandemic, many fleets acquired vehicles that saw little use. When employees were sent home, vehicle activity dropped drastically, leaving many assets sitting idle and depreciating.
Now, as employees return, fleets are rightsizing—selling underutilized vehicles and focusing on meeting actual needs. This shift has prompted higher-level management to reevaluate their assets, reducing maintenance and insurance costs while optimizing the fleet for efficiency and effectiveness.
What changes have you seen in the industry in the past five years? What kinds of changes do you expect to see in the next five years?
Paul Lauria, the founder of Mercury, referred to the last five years as the perfect storm. Many fleet professionals, specifically on the maintenance side, have 25 – 30 years of experience, but will soon retire. There have been fewer younger people entering the industry to take their place, so much of that industry knowledge is lost. We’re experiencing something that Paul referred to as a “brain drain.”
On the opposite end, we’re seeing a rapid advancement in technology. So, the question becomes, how do we leverage that to compensate for some of the industry knowledge we’re losing?
In a more general sense, I believe we are on the precipice of a new era with artificial intelligence. If you think back to how computers were in the mid-90s versus how they are now, they’ve completely changed how humans operate and interact. I think we’re at a similar time now, right before a drastic increase in the utilization and capability of AI.
Mercury leverages AI and machine learning to analyze millions of data points and draw better insights. For example, we can look at maintenance data, accident data, and telematics utilization to draw patterns such as “Department X is five times more likely to get in an accident than departments A, B, and C.”
How are fleets balancing the challenges of electrification with the other challenges they face?
It depends on the goals of the client. Some clients may want to go green on their own where others have public mandates they must comply with. Usually these involve electrifying a certain percentage of their fleet by a specific date.
In any case, we tell our clients a few different things. The first is that electrification is far beyond just the fleet operation, especially when discussing infrastructure upgrades. So, we ask questions like what is the organization’s strategic master plan? Will they stay in their current locations where their vehicles are parked/charging? Do they lease or own the buildings? Then there are considerations such as grant funding or incentive opportunities. If you take advantage of one grant, does that disqualify you from another? There are several considerations, but it all starts with fleet management.
I think it’s challenging for many clients because a fleet manager isn’t necessarily going to have oversight of facilities and they may not be privy to the organization’s master plan, so they just focus on doing what they can to procure EVs and maintain compliance with mandates or goals. We try and help our clients zoom out and consider the different elements of their organization. That way, they can develop a master plan for electrification that is both realistic and, in the organization’s, best interest.
Tell me a bit about you and your experience in the fleet industry before going to Mercury Associates.
I started in the fleet industry in 2016 with the Commonwealth of Massachusetts’ Office of Vehicle Management (OVM) which oversaw executive branch fleet operations for 37 agencies. My first initiative was launching a telematics program across the entire executive 
branch, which involved negotiating with collective bargaining agencies and organizing the logistics across 4,000 vehicles at 900 locations. Once the implementation was completed, I was able to lead a team in constructing a business intelligence application which leveraged the telematics data from all assets. This platform helped us more dynamically analyze the data and rightsize the entire fleet.
The second major initiative I was involved with was the electrification of Massachusetts’ executive branch fleet. This was a joint effort involving members of key departments which voluntarily came together as a committee and reviewed many of the elements we discussed earlier. Using the BI application, we were able to leverage the telematics utilization data in combination with site and infrastructure data. This gave us better insight into how our vehicles were being utilized, and which would be prime candidates for electrification.
