Mobility Management: Moving Into a New Era of Fleet Management
By Michele Cunningham, Senior Vice President, Products and Services, Element Fleet Management
Today’s fleet manager needs to be familiar with fuel costs and maintenance, policy strategies, and, increasingly, connected vehicles, electronic logging devices (ELDs) and the latest in-vehicle safety tech.
Modern transportation is changing rapidly and bringing fresh opportunities with it, especially for companies that manage fleets.
The companies who will succeed in this new era must move beyond acknowledging the changes in fleet management to embracing the new mindset of mobility management. Entire organizations can benefit from a smart, modern mobility strategy by getting ahead of competitors and solving the pain points that can come from antiquated practices.
As fleet management moves into a new era of mobility management, here are a few strategies companies should keep in mind to make the most of the change.
Four Proactive Steps for Fleet Safety Program Success
By Chris Villella, Vice President, Strategic Relationship Management
A lot of moving pieces are at play in every organization, and the success of a fleet safety program relies on agreement among those pieces.
Fleets need a united mindset and the cooperation of everyone involved if the safety program is going to bring down the fleet accident rate, cut costs, protect drivers, and guard against liability. The industry realizes today that it is insufficient, and irresponsible, to operate a fleet without a safety program in place, but it is not enough just to have one, you need to use it.
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So, what does the fleet manager need to do to ensure the success of the safety program they are fighting so hard to implement?
Will Driverless Cars Be Safe Enough to Reduce Serious Crashes?
With the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) concluding that “94 percent of serious crashes are due to dangerous choices or errors people make behind the wheel, it would seem that once cars become driverless, there will be hardly any crashes at all. Right?
The right answer is probably somewhere in between introducing cars that are just better than average and waiting for them to be nearly perfect.
“Is ‘safe enough’ 10 percent safer than where we are by manually driving?” said Bryan Reimer, associate director of the transportation center at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “One thing that I think is really going to limit our ability to see this technology proliferate is a societal acceptance on the definition of what is safe enough.”
Read the original article at The Washington Post.
The Fear Factor is Huge for Neighborhood Mechanics
The U.S. auto repair industry employs about 750,000 workers and though they are increasingly skilled and tech-savvy, many experts say, they are not prepared for the end of gas-powered transportation.
The reason is simple: Unlike gas-powered engines, electric engines don’t require oil changes, have far fewer moving parts and rarely break down, eliminating much of the maintenance that repair shops rely on. The latest electric vehicles can be serviced using parts purchased online or fixed remotely through over-the-air updates.
“People are freaking out,” Craig Van Batenburg, a Massachusetts mechanic said, noting that some of the resistance to change is strongest in the Midwest and propelled by unfounded rumors of technicians being electrocuted by electric vehicles. “Ninety percent of our industry has done nothing — absolutely nothing to prepare. They just turn the hybrids and EVs away and say, ‘We don’t work on those cars, go back to Ford or Toyota.’ The fear factor is huge.”
Read the original article at The Washington Post.
The Big Apple is the Most Expensive City in the World for Business Travel
The Global Business Travel Association, a travel industry trade group, predicts business in the corporate travel sector will have increased between six and seven percent by 2019 and 2020.
Using data compiled from Business Travel News’ Corporate Travel Index, Expert Market, a business-to-business office equipment marketer, has concluded that three American cities take the top spots.
The typical business traveler spends about $549 per day in New York, compared to $534 in San Francisco and $511 in Boston. Tokyo and Zurich round out the top five. Washington and Chicago are also in the top 10.
Read the original article at The Washington Post.
