The Australasian Fleet Management Association Awards have been handed out to three exemplars of fleet management, in Australia and New Zealand.
Tourism Holdings Australia has won the 2017 award for fleet safety, implementing TomTom telematics systems and safety culture across its fleet of campervans and motorhomes.
As the largest rental motorhome fleet globally, in Australia alone it runs a 1400-strong fleet of motorhomes, with the telematics systems trialled in the New Zealand fleet.
The results in one year have seen only two vehicles leave the road/roll over, compared with 14 in the previous year.
The fleet’s rate of speeding has dropped by a massive 84%.
THA commercial fleet manager Nicky Bree says while the business was gong strong, there was huge room for improvement.
“We started installing telematics devices and TomTom screens to all vehicles in order to have better communication with out customers, reduce the number of accidents, and reduce repair and maintenance costs through influencing the driver behaviour,” Bree says.
The TomTom screens also provide customers automated messages encouraging drivers to obey speed limits, and warn them of severe weather like bushfires or cyclones, as well as providing in-house safe driving videos.
“We also wanted to increase the customer experience and provide customers with more information while on-road,” she adds.
Life Without Barriers’ national fleet manager Peter Armour is the 2017 Fleet Manager of the Year.
His role has included internalising fleet management operations and developing new policies and procedures for around 1000 vehicles.
Sponsored by Teletrac Navman, the Fleet Manager of the Year award is recognition of his three years of hard work which included reducing the fleet from 36 models to just 10, and installing telematics systems into every vehicle within his first 12 weeks.
“The review found the issues to be onerous and they all needed to be fixed as soon as possible,” Armour says.
“I was employed to implement all of these changes as part of the change to in-sourced fleet management,” he explains.
“This combined with the size and spread of the fleet across all corners of the country presented many additional challenges.”
“Life Without Barriers has grown year after year as a social purpose organisation,” Armour adds, “As a not-for-profit, it needs to manage every dollar spent as best as it can… Every dollar saved being able to be invested back towards client programs.”
Churches of Christ procurement, fleet and sustainability group manager Richard Schuster has accepted the 2017 Fleet Environment Award.
The organisation has introduced electric vehicles to its fleet, installed fuel and emission-saving telematics equipment, offset 1800 tonnes of carbon dioxide by planting 7000 native trees and made stop-start vehicle technology integral across its fleet to reduce fuel consumption in congested driving.
“In addition to adding electric vehicles to the fleet, we have focused on opportunities to, long-term charge those vehicles from renewable sources – predominantly solar energy,” Schuster says.
A long-term sustainable environmental policy has seen overall emissions drop from 224 g/km to 182 g/km.
“Caring for people extends further than just caring for their immediate needs,” Schuster adds, “It means ensuring that their future on this planet, and their children’s future, is not only assured but is improved in terms of quality.”
