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February 20, 2018

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Editor's Analysis & Top Industry News


The Way You Win

In today’s Customer Driven, Laura Jozwiak articulately explains “that the way you win is not what happens in one moment, but what happens and how you prepare over many moments.” Practice makes perfect.

Crash Rates and Costs Keep Rising

In the Safety & Risk column, Art Liggio considers why it is that crash rates and costs are going up, even as safety technologies proliferate. It’s a situation we all want to get a handle on!

Are You Marketing to Fleet Professionals?

If the answer is yes, then please consider FMW’s Content Marketing & Advertising options. We’re gentle on your fleet marketing budget and we will work with you to tailor just the right program that gets results you need. You can get more information here, or email me directly.

Ted Roberts
President and Chief Content Officer


Thought Leadership

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

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

The Fleet CX Toolbox – Solid steps to implementing and improving fleet customer experience

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


VIDEO: Reduce the Severity and Frequency of Accidents

The newly-launched Risk Center from Donlen is a powerful tool to help fleets reduce the severity and frequency of accidents.



VIDEO: A Relationship with Procurement


 Developing a Healthy, Productive Relationship with Procurement
 

It’s important for fleet managers to develop a healthy, productive relationship with procurement – and NAFA offers a fantastic webinar on this timely topic.


VIDEO: A Process That Works

 Quick But Careful Implementation at Shell Commercial Fleet
 

When it comes to implementation, Shell Commercial Fleet has a careful, proven process for new customers — one that gets cards into drivers’ hands quickly.





The Fleet Spot


Donlen Releases the Donlen Risk Center to Reduce Accident Rates and Improve Fleet Safety

The Donlen Risk Center allows Donlen customers to monitor individual driver and fleet performance, and predictive analytics provide actionable recommendations to prevent risky behavior in their fleet.

The Donlen Risk Center aggregates all safety and operating data on driver motor vehicle record (MVR) results, accident history, violations, fuel, maintenance, safety training, and telematics infractions. Based on a 36-month driver history of all of the aforementioned risk data, drivers are assigned a risk level from A through D in order to pinpoint high-risk drivers and automatically assign safety training if necessary.

READ MORE

NAFA Launches Websites Devoted to Easy Access to Fleet Education

NAFA Fleet Management Association (NAFA) announces the launch of its all new www.fleetcertification.org and www.nafasustainable.org websites.

“NAFA’s websites provide visitors with easier search tools and a more engaging mobile user platform,” said NAFA Chief Executive Officer Phillip E. Russo, CAE. “The new websites were created in response to member feedback to improve member services, making it easier for users to find the materials they need.”

READ MORE

‘Any car, anytime, anywhere’: LeasePlan announces Strategic Update and strong Full Year 2017 results

LeasePlan Press Release

LeasePlan Corporation N.V. reports strong Full Year 2017 Results, and announces a Strategic Update to deliver “any car, anytime, anywhere.”

Tex Gunning, LeasePlan CEO, says, “There is a clear megatrend from ownership to usership and subscription models taking place in both the new and high-quality used car markets. Increasingly, our customers – whether they are corporate, SMEs or private individuals – would prefer a ‘Car-as-a-Service’ with no strings attached in terms of car type or duration. They just want ‘any car, anytime, anywhere’.”

Read the release

Big Strides in Vehicle Dependability for Nearly All OEMs

The 2018 Vehicle Dependability Study (VDS) is out from J.D. Power, and the news is good.

Since last year’s study, overall vehicle dependability has increased 9% across the board – and it’s the first time there’s been any improvement to the score since 2013.

A couple of key findings:
The most problems reported still have to do with in-vehicle technology, with Bluetooth connectivity problems and built-in voice recognition leading the way.
Mass Market brands keep closing the gap with Luxury brands.

READ the press release at J.D. Power.

Customer Driven


By Laura Jozwiak, Senior Vice President of Sales and Client Relations, Wheels, Inc.

Did you watch the Super bowl? Did your team win? Whether you watched it or not, it was a great display of talent, competitiveness and endurance.

After the Philadelphia Eagles hoisted the Lombardi trophy, Tight End Zach Ertz was asked what made this Eagle team so special. His answer was that they love to practice. What a great reminder that the way you win is not what happens in one moment, but what happens and how you prepare over many moments. It is in daily meetings, weight lifting sessions, practice squads and dissecting game tape that the players improve on those small tweaks to separate them from the rest of the NFL pack to win their first Super Bowl.

How much practice does it actually take to be perfect? In his book, Outliers, author Malcolm Gladwell discussed that you need to deliberately practice a skill for 10,000 hours before you become an expert. This theory is based on a study by Swedish psychologist Anders Ericsson and seems fairly logical…the more you practice the more you know about the topic and can identify trends that will lead to better execution.

Do you think you’ve accumulated over 10,000 hours in the study of customer service? READ MORE

 

Safety & Risk


By Art Liggio, President and CEO, Driving Dynamics

Scratching your head? Can’t figure out why your crash rates and cost severity are going up?

Shouldn’t vehicle safety technologies, which fleet operators are spending an arm and a leg on to fix these issues, produce different results?

An October 2016 report on crash rate frequency and severity provided by the Insurance Information Institutes (iii.org) gives us statistically good reasons to ponder these questions. Plus, preliminary 2017 data indicates similar results.

Obviously, there are a multitude of factors contributing to deteriorating results. Let’s take a look at some of the key drivers for rising cost severity.

READ MORE

 

More Fuel Taxes?


The Hill

President Trump reportedly told lawmakers in a meeting in the White House that he supports a 25-cent increase in the federal tax on gasoline at the pump in order to support his program to invest in new and repaired roads and bridges.

The tax currently stands at 18.4 cents a gallon for gasoline and 24.4 cents for diesel. The tax , which supports the Federal Highway Trust fund, was last raised in 1993 and isn’t indexed to inflation. The fund has been suffering from losses in revenue because of improving auto fuel efficiency and has been at risk of becoming insolvent without repeated emergency Congressional funding.

“Sen. Tom Carper (Del.), the top Democrat on the Environment and Public Works Committee, was in the meeting and confirmed in a statement that the president backed a 25-cent increase. “’President Trump came back to the idea of a 25 cent increase several times throughout the meeting,’ Carper said in a statement.

Read the article at The Hill.









Fleet Trends & Issues


Cities and States Are Starting to Profit from Ride-Hailing Business

New York Times

More than a dozen cities and states have started to collect fees from the likes of Uber and Lyft and their passengers to raise funds to pay for a variety of services, not all of them transportation-related.

The fees range from as little as 15 cents a ride to $5, or sales taxes of 1 to 1.4 percent. Uber and Lyft claim they’re being singled out.

“As ride-hailing services become a dominant force across the country, they have increased congestion, threatened taxi industries and posed political and legal challenges for cities and states struggling to regulate the high-tech newcomers. But they are also proving to be an unexpected boon for municipalities that are increasingly latching onto their success — and being rewarded with millions in revenue to pay not only for transportation and infrastructure needs, but also a host of programs and services that have nothing to do with t”he ride-hailing apps.”

Read the article at the New York Times

Most Americans Haven’t Embraced the Self-Driving Car Idea

Cars.com

A new study shows a gigantic disconnect: while most Americans expect autonomous vehicles to command the road by 2050, they don’t trust them.

The study by the research firm, Morning Consultant, found that there isn’t a great deal of difference of opinion based on age. The company presented its findings at
Autos 2050, a public policy and auto technology conference last month in Washington, D.C., sponsored by the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers and the not-for-profit Alliance for Transportation Innovation.

“Some 52 percent say they somewhat or totally distrust autonomous vehicles. There are even higher levels of concern for some specific trust issues, such as technology glitches (79 percent very or somewhat concerned); overall road safety (79 percent); safety of driverless and human-driven cars on the road at the same time (78 percent); and privacy protections for personal data collected by the cars, such as GPS tracking (66 percent).”

Read the article at Cars.com.

NSC: U.S. Traffic Fatalities Still at Elevated Levels

Key to the crisis is distracted driving and people who still don’t use their seat belts.

USA Today

The National Safety Council estimates that 2017 highway deaths will exceed 40,000 again for the second year in a row.

Official figures are kept by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which issued a report this month revealing that fatalities through the first nine months of 2017 will come close to matching last year’s number, which was the highest since 2008.

“While automakers have dramatically improved car safety in recent decades, with advancements such as strategically places air bags and high-tech collision avoidance systems, other factors have kept the death toll high”

Read the article at USA Today.

Fleet Manager Alert: Be Prepared for Rising Resale Values of Electric Vehicles

By Mark Boada, Senior Editor

As all fleet managers know, vehicle depreciation is their single biggest cost. So, it came as startling news recently when the British auto data research company Cap HPI reported that the resale prices of electric vehicles (EVs) in the United Kingdom have started to rise.

Specifically, the company said that some EV models have a resale value that is higher than their purchase price after one year and 10,000 miles on the road.

READ MORE

Totaled?


Forbes

The skyrocketing cost of parts for today’s technology-sophisticated vehicles make it more likely that they’ll be declared a total loss after an accident, and making them more tempting for thieves to grab and chop them.

“Not only are new vehicles becoming more expensive than ever – when last we looked, the average transaction price was in excess of $36,000 – the cost of parts and repairs following an accident is becoming so prohibitive that what might look repairable to the layperson might be considered a total loss to an insurance adjuster. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, prices for motor vehicle repairs were 61.07% higher in 2017 than they were in 2000.

“In particular, sophisticated safety features like forward collision mitigation and blind-spot warning systems that employ multiple sensors and/or cameras embedded in bumpers and fenders are driving up repair costs and, in turn, the number of cars being totaled after crashes.”

Read the article at Forbes.

 

Safety and Savings


Financial Director

In the 36 European countries in which the information storage company operates, over the past 10 years the company has seen accidents decrease by 87%, and a resulting decline in the cost of repairs, maintenance and insurance.

“One of the secrets of that success has been the adoption of driver behavior telemetry in 2011. Although one of the key contributors to the program, however, it wasn’t just a case of fitting the technology and hoping for the best. Iron Mountain recognized the power of this tool but knew it would need to be closely managed to be effective in the long run.

“Working closely with the drivers, the number of violations were reduced by over 80% in just six months – a resounding success yet, crucially, the on-time delivery service KPI of 99.97% has not been affected by the initiative and means drivers now realize they don’t have to speed to get the job done.”

Read the article at Financial Director

 

A Game Changer


The Detroit Bureau

Speaking to the auto industry’s leading AI experts, David Atkinson, the top Systems & Technology and Chief Research Scientist for Artificial Intelligence Silicon Valley Research & Development Center Continental AG, said that autonomous vehicles will decisively change the world.

According to Atkinson, “There are a lot of opportunities for the auto industry (with autonomous vehicles). The social changes will be on a scale equal to or greater than those created by the Internet or the smart phone.”

“The next level of artificial technology, which can use deep learning to understand complex patterns and to make decisions, is now in the lab undergoing refinement. “In my experience it usually takes 10 years for a technology to move from the lab to commercialization,” said Atkinson.”

Autonomous vehicles are now traveling along that time line, added Atkinson, who said he expected to be able to travel to Detroit Metropolitan Airport via a robotic taxi by 2025.

Read the article at The Detroit Bureau








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.
AmeriFleet
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 78 years. Wheels helps you build tomorrow’s fleet today.



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