FleetManagementWeekly
September 25, 2018

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Editor's Analysis & Top Industry News


The Mobility Revolution is Here! Are You Ready?

This is a busy week. The tired expression “doing more with less” is what we do. But, if you possibly can, please take the time on Thursday, September 27th, at 1:00 Eastern for a free webinar that, as NAFA says, “could change your entire perspective on the future of fleet.”

The webinar is sponsored by the NAFA Foundation, a charitable organization, and it is free for everyone. Plus, everyone who registers for the webinar will receive, again at no cost, the detailed white paper upon which the webinar is based. It is a must-read for every fleet professional.

The webinar will be led by futurist Lukas Neckermann. FMW has interviewed Neckermann several times and he is fascinating.

Janice Sutton
Editor in Chief


Thought Leadership

Customer Driven — Engage your organization to create customer loyalty, trust, and superior service

Disruptive Leadership — Master the principles of disruptive leadership

Fleet Asset Management – Best practices for work truck management

Fleet Marketing – Guiding principles for fleet providers to improve marketing and increase sales

Fleet Spectator A 360 view of the fleet industry

Globally Speaking — Perspectives on the multinational fleet

In the Public Interest — Successfully managing the government fleet

On Fleet Driver Management Solutions to improve your fleet’s accident rate and cut costs on collision repairs

Safety & Risk — Impactful driver safety and risk management tools and techniques

Talent Management — Smart guidelines to help you manage the talent in your workplace

Think, Execute, Win!Leadership tips from NBA Star and motivational speaker Walter Bond


VIDEO: Repairing Vehicles Where They Are – Cost-Effectively

YourMechanic offers a powerful value proposition for fleets: repairing vehicles where they are, in a highly cost-effective manner.



VIDEO: Saving Lives


 Stopping Distracted Driving and Saving Lives: Fleet Can Take the Lead
 

We have seen a terrifying jump in traffic fatalities and injuries in the past few years, hugely due to distracted driving. The fleet industry can take a significant leadership role in turning this trend around.


VIDEO: AFLA in Orlando

 This Year’s AFLA Has a Rock and Roll Theme
 

This year’s AFLA conference in Orlando has a very timely rock and roll theme: Right Now.





The Fleet Spot



AFLA Announces 2018 President’s Award Recipients

Mary Sticha, Automotive Fleet and Leasing Association (AFLA) president, has announced the 2018 Annual AFLA President’s Award winners.

“I am honored to have the opportunity to recognize and thank these individuals who have put a great deal of time and talent into governing AFLA,” said Sticha.

READ MORE to learn AFLA’s 2018 President’s Award Recipients!

Disruption, Data and Drivers: Technology is Fundamentally Changing the Fleet Space

By Bernie Kavanagh

We know business people can be notoriously resistant to change, so picture the following scenario for a moment:

Arriving at work, Fran Fleetkeeper scans a large board with dots on a map. Some of the dots are green. Some are red. Some are blinking. These are her company’s vehicles, and she notices some are missing while others are clustered too close for optimal efficiency.

But Fran won’t be pinging her drivers. Instead, she taps her phone to implement “Driver Area Eight,” a navigation overlay that directs vehicles in that area to destinations that better serve her operation.

READ MORE

Driving Dynamics Welcomes Tracy Caldwell to its Risk and Safety Services Team

Tracy Caldwell has joined Driving Dynamics as its risk and safety services consultant.

Reporting to Debbie Balestra, Driving Dynamics V.P. of client relations, Tracy is primarily responsible for DrivActiv eLearning sales, creation of custom client safety policy lessons and administration of the company’s learning management system and motor vehicle records service.

She also manages enrollment logistics for the company’s behind-the-wheel driver safety training courses and conducts products demonstrations of company’s various web-based services.

READ MORE

One-Off Training Interventions Won’t Amount to Holistic Solutions

Without consistent on-going driver training your employer becomes a prime target for negligent entrustment lawsuits

By Art Liggio, President and CEO, Driving Dynamics

Consider your fleet safety program as it relates to driver safety training. Has it changed in recent years to be reactionary and narrowly focused on a small group of drivers?

Check with your corporate training department and they will likely share that effective training must be proactive, not reactive, and supplemented with a steady flow of relevant training to support your training goals.

READ MORE

In the Public Interest


By Robert Martinez, Deputy Commissioner, New York City Police Department

If you are one of those people who, to protect yourself against hackers and cyber thieves, removes your hard drive and smashes it with a hammer when discarding your old computer, you will want to read this.

Today, every public leader must contend with the critical role technology plays in the structure and operation of government and the need to maintain the highest levels of cybersecurity.

This is especially true for government fleets and fleet vehicle connections to government data banks and computer networks. Vehicles today have more memory and computer capability than an F-14 fighter jet. All this memory and even a driver’s control of a vehicle can be just one hacker away from a big problem for fleet managers, both government and private alike.

READ MORE

 

Custom-Built Driver Safety Programs


Alertdriving®, a technology company that provides digital driver risk identification, mitigation and monitoring solutions to organizations with road risk exposure, has launched a new micro-learning platform to better serve its global partners and customers.

Clients can build custom driver safety training programs that include individualized driver learning plans using content from one of three distinct training curriculums: the Professional series that consists of full 15-minute lessons and a comprehensive knowledge assessment, the Essentials series that covers core safe driving topics in 5-minute lessons, and the Express series that features narrowly focused 1-minute snippets.

READ MORE

 

Talent Management


By Dr. Jan Ferri-Reed

Many organizations struggle with the question “what is the proper role for our managers?”

But there are different types of managers found in most organizations. Some managers are formal and distant with their employees. Other managers are friendly and enjoy close relationships with workers. But who’s to say which is right?

Managers who are overly close with their employees clearly risk being taken advantage of, if not downright ignored. On the other hand, managers who are distant and rigid risk alienating their workers while creating unnecessary tension in the workplace.

Perhaps the best way to consider the proper role for managers is to look at the qualities managers must have in order to be effective at supervising others. The following are a list of the top six qualities and skills that many experts believe are the foundation for effective management.

READ MORE









Fleet Trends & Issues


The Latest Technology Will Soon Be Available on Affordable Cars

USA Today

Developing new features in vehicle technology is an expensive endeavor, and usually the latest innovations were only available in high-priced cars. Features such as a navigation system, stability control and even traffic-adaptive cruise control are commonplace on even budget models.

Technology advances aren’t limited to driving automation and safety. Many innovations in luxury cars pertain to passenger convenience and pampering. Edmunds says, “There’s a lot of tech in luxury vehicles and more on the way. If you’re an early adopter on a budget, just wait a few years. Most legitimately useful features will eventually be available on more affordable cars.”

Read the article at USA Today.

New Car buyers Beware – Insurance Premiums on the Rise

The Detroit Bureau

New vehicle buyers have a lot to consider when determining what kind of car they can afford. The average monthly car payment is more than $500 now and insurance rates have jumped by more than a third between 2010 and 2016, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

Odds are, the more expensive the vehicle is, the more it will cost to repair it in the event of a crash or theft. IIHS says that insurance companies make claim payments of roughly $900 on average per vehicle. Some vehicles get into more accidents, and some have higher payouts for each accident.

Read the article at The Detroit Bureau.

Used Car Shoppers Must Be Aware of Flood Damaged Vehicles

The Drive

Used car shoppers need to watch for unscrupulous salespeople or independent sellers who may lie about flood damage. According to Carfax, 325,510 flooded vehicles were put back in use in 2017, including 12,166 in Philadelphia, 10,037 in Chicago and 6,995 in Detroit—large cities not traditionally known for excessive flooding.

“People with bad intentions buy cars that have been totaled by floods and move them to other parts of the country,” Richard Reina, the product training director for aftermarket auto retailer CARiD, explained. This process, meant to remove a salvage designation from a car’s documentation, is called title washing. There’s a good description of the scam on the Fraud Guides site.

Read the article at The Drive.

California, Maryland, Connecticut Ready to Fight US Fuel Economy Rollback

S&P Global

Top officials from California, Maryland and Connecticut have vowed to take whatever legal action necessary to preserve their tougher tailpipe rules if the Trump administration rolls back federal fuel economy standards. The US Environmental Protection Agency and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration will hold hearings on the proposed rollback next week.

Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh said, “It seems very clear from everything the EPA has done and everything the president has said that they’ve reached a conclusion that they are going to roll back these standards and they’re just hell-bent on doing it. They’re unwilling or uninterested in hearing other points of view, looking at the science, looking at the facts. If they continue to head down that path, we’ll end up in court.”

Read the article at S&P Global.

Keeping Your Fleet in Shape


Keeping your vehicles and drivers safe, productive and on the road is essential to achieving your organization’s sales and service goals

By Bill Jones, Managed Maintenance, Element Fleet Management

So, what can you do to keep your fleet in top shape?

1. Know the importance of cost savings with preventive maintenance
Properly maintained vehicles reduce unscheduled repairs and downtime. Preventive maintenance may include oil changes, tire rotation/inspection and general vehicle safety checks.

READ MORE to learn the 6 tips that will help you keep your fleet in top shape!

 

Problems with Weather


Bloomberg

After years of testing, with hundreds of cars and vans deployed on public streets and private facilities, even the best autonomous-driving efforts still struggle with inclement weather. The ultimate hurdle to the next phase of driverless technology might not come from algorithms and artificial intelligence—it might be fog and rain.

WaveSense has built a radar system to scan what’s below the road, down where there’s no snow at all, rather than parse wintry mix on top.

A winter full of snow, and even the occasional obstinate seagull, will help with product development. “Eventually, we expect this to be something that’s on every vehicle that drives autonomously,” Tarik Bolat, WaveSense’s chief executive officer says.

Read the article at Bloomberg.

 

Way Beyond Cars


Forbes

Legacy car rental companies are branching into ride-sharing — often in the most unlikely places. Princeton set up its program, called Revise Your Ride, to encourage faculty and staff to leave their cars at home.

These are signs of a more sweeping change that’s about to overtake a $30-billion-a-year business. It will result in what only a few years ago was unthinkable: a radical new transportation paradigm, where the lines between car ownership, rental, and lease are blurred beyond recognition. In that world, cars will drive themselves and Apple, General Motors, Hertz, and Google will be in the same business.

Read the article at Forbes.








Fleet Management Resources
 
AFLA – Automotive Fleet & Leasing Association
Providing the advanced forum for corporate fleet professionals to network with industry leaders.
The CEI Group Inc.
CEI is North America’s largest provider of fully integrated fleet accident management, driver safety and risk management services.
NAFA Fleet Management Association
NAFA is the association for the diverse vehicle fleet management profession regardless of organizational type, geographic location, or fleet composition.
ACERTUS
Offering a nationwide vehicle delivery and relocation service; serving the corporate and commercial fleet industry.
Donlen
Since 1965, Donlen has been the fleet management industry’s leading provider of comprehensive, integrated financing and asset management solutions — and that spirit of innovation continues today.
PARS
PARS' mission is to provide you with high-quality service at competitive prices for all of your transportation needs.
ARI
Driven fleet professionals. Driving results.
Driving Dynamics
Driving Dynamics was established to help corporate fleet drivers develop expert, safe driving skills using proven, advanced driving techniques.
Wheels, Inc.
First in fleet for 79 years. Wheels helps you build tomorrow’s fleet today.



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