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| Customer: |  | Derby City Council | | Industry: | | Local Authority | | Vehicles in fleet | | 300 + | | Service areas | | UK | | Return on investment | | Large reduction in costly legal actions. | | Payback | | The system pays for itself |
The Customer
Derby City Council (DCC) is rated one of
the best‐performing city councils in England
and Wales, receiving four‐star status
(the highest achievable) from the independent
audit commission. DCC operates
a fleet of over 300 vehicles across all
divisions including Building Services,
Waste Management, Street Cleaning, Environmental
Services and Highways. The
fleet comprises the full local authority
range from small vans to 26‐tonne refuse
collection vehicles.
The Challenge
In 2002, there was a rising trend in the
number of litigation claims made against
UK local authorities for improper road
gritting. DCC wanted to take a proactive
stance and prevent any claims from going
to court by being able to provide evidence
of its road gritting activities.
At a later stage, DCC needed to expand
any solution to the rest of its fleet and
improve its route planning, scheduling,
customer service and response levels
across all divisions.
The Strategy
DCC decided to implement a vehicle tracking
system that would enable it to prove
which roads had been gritted, the speed
and time that they were gritted, the flow
rate at which they were gritted and which
spread pattern was used. DCC’s Highways
Division issued an open tender inviting
applications to supply an appropriate system.
The Decision
DCC evaluated several companies during
the trial process. SimplyTrak was chosen
as the preferred supplier based on
system reliability ‐ which was of paramount
importance given the underlying
objectives. | Follow‐up
In 2004, DCC issued another tender inviting
applications for a tracking system for
the rest of its fleet, beginning with 100
vehicles in its Building Services division.
More than 10 suppliers submitted proposals
and a shortlist was drawn up to give
presentations of their systems. Three
companies were chosen to run trials and
SimplyTrak was chosen as the preferred
supplier based on ‘best value’.
Key Benefits
DCC has identified the following key benefit
areas from the SimplyTrak system
• Prevention of litigation claims. This has
saved management time, reduced resource
requirements and decreased
financial liabilities
• Full visibility of the entire fleet 24/7
• Ability to send appropriate vehicles to
job locations faster and more efficiently
• Ability to easily add, reconfigure and
reschedule vehicle rounds and routes.
Previously this was a complex, time consuming
task
• Improved customer response times
• Increased Service Levels
• Reduced communication costs
DCC commissioned its tracking system to
reduce its legal liabilities. As well as
achieving this it has enjoyed a positive ROI
across all other areas of the system. | | | | 
| Customer: | | Car‐Go‐Bus | | Industry: | | Community Transport | | Vehicles in fleet | | 5 | | Service areas | | UK Midlands | | Return on investment | | £000s per vehicle | | Payback | | The system pays for itself |
The Company
Established in 2003, Car‐Go‐Bus is a community
based, not‐for‐profit, transport
organisation. It provides flexible, affordable
and accessible transport services to
people within the boroughs of North Warwickshire,
Nuneaton and Bedworth.
The Challenge
Car‐Go‐Bus operates in rural areas and
carries vulnerable passengers. This meant
that it needed a system that would enable
it to quickly bring in outside assistance
should an emergency situation arise. In
addition, Car‐Go‐Bus doesn’t have its own
vehicle parking spaces, it uses a nearby
public car park. This represented a security
risk which needed to be addressed.
The Strategy
In September 2006, Car‐Go‐Bus decided
to implement a tracking system that
would allow it to:
• Locate vehicles in real time
• Reduce the risk of vehicle theft
Car‐Go‐Bus looked at a number of ‘market
leading’ tracking systems and was shown
many product demonstrations. It decided
that most of these systems were too expensive,
complex to use and the backup
service provided was poor.
The Decision
Car‐Go‐Bus is externally funded. It is critical
that it manages costs to deliver the
optimum service to its customers.
Car‐Go‐Bus eventually chose the Simply‐
Trak system based on SimplyTrak’s honest
approach to understanding its real business
needs. The system itself was affordable,
easy to use and flexible enough to
meet all Car‐Go‐Bus’s requirements. | Follow‐up
Car‐Go‐Bus has greatly expanded its use
of the SimplyTrak system beyond the initial
requirements. Just 18 months after
implementation it is now being used for
job scheduling, cross‐checking daily job
records, invoice reconciliation and day to
day vehicle management tasks such as
service schedules and MOT’s. Car‐Go‐Bus
can now take on unscheduled jobs that
come in ‘on the day’ as they are able to
immediately locate the nearest vehicles to
the job.
Car‐Go‐Bus no longer needs to call drivers
to find out where they are, and it has
much greater control over how its vehicles
are used ‐ particularly for nonbusiness
use. Future developments will
include incorporating onboard sensors to
ensure that daily vehicle checks are being
carried out properly.
Key Benefits
Car‐Go‐Bus has identified the following
key benefit areas:
• Time savings due to correct routing
• Fuel savings due to fewer miles driven
• Increased utilisation through identification
of nearest vehicle and rerouting
• Decreased administration costs
• Reduced maintenance costs
• Reduced driver communication costs
• Reduced risk of vehicle theft
• Improved customer satisfaction due to
greater productivity and responsiveness
“To employ a part‐time person to do the
same work manually would cost over
£10,000 per year...we estimate that the
system is saving us many thousands
of pounds each year.” | | | |
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| Customer: | | Countrywide Freight Group | | Industry: | | Courier / Express Delivery | | Vehicles in fleet | | 207 | | Service areas | | UK, Republic of Ireland | | Return on investment | | £685 savings per month, per vehicle | | Payback | | Less than one month |
The Company
Established in 1976, Countrywide Freight
is a privately owned distribution company
with a turnover in excess of £28 million
and is the market leader in Anglo‐Irish
groupage It handles more than 10,000
consignments every day.
The Challenge
In 2005, Countrywide identified that it
needed to implement greater security
measures for high value consignments
and to provide its customers with more
accurate ETAs. Operations staff were unable
to provide accurate delivery times or
locate consignments without making a
series of costly phone calls.
The Strategy
Countrywide decided to deploy a vehicle
tracking system that would:
• Locate vehicles in real‐time
• Provide accurate customer arrival times
• Allow for vehicles to be re‐routed at
short notice
• Eliminate the requirement for co‐drivers
for high‐value consignments
• Provide historic and real‐time reporting
• Be delivered from a single platform
In order to find a solution that would support
this strategy, Countrywide evaluated
five vehicle tracking firms.
The Decision
SimplyTrak was chosen after a 3 month,
extended trial. It was chosen based on
system cost, ease of use, reliability, exceptional
customer service, and SimplyTrak’s
willingness and ability to support Countrywide’s
special requests. | The Bottom Line
Today Countrywide Freight has greater
control over its vehicle fleet. The Simply‐
Trak system has improved vehicle utilisation,
reduced vehicle costs, decreased
overtime pay, improved staff productivity
and enhanced customer service levels.
Return on Investment
Countrywide calculated the costs of its
investment in software, hardware and
personnel over a 1 year period to quantify
its return from the SimplyTrak deployment.
It identified the following benefit
areas.
• Significant reduction in fuel costs
• Increased utilization through identification
of nearest vehicle and job rerouting
• Decrease in driver overtime
• Decrease in driver downtime
• Reduced maintenance costs through
improved driver behaviour
• Decreased administration costs through
automation of e.g. timesheets
• Improved security over goods in transit
• Removal of two driver requirement for
high value consignments
• Improved customer service and more
accurate delivery times
• Increase in customer satisfaction due to
greater responsiveness
• Redeployment of office staff to other
value generating activities
• Reduced communication costs
• Support for Policy Compliance (Working
Time Directive, Health & Safety) and
Employee Duty of Care | | | |
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| Customer: | | PSS (GB) Ltd | | Industry: | | Facilities Management | | Vehicles in fleet | | 8 | | Service areas | | UK Mainland | | Return on investment | | £400 fuel savings per month. Elimination of false timesheet claims. | | Payback | | Less than one month |
The Company
Established in 1997, PSS provides facilities
management services to the UK construction
industry. Its customers includes many
PLCs and blue chip organisations.
The Challenge
PSS’s workforce is mainly site based. This
creates issues in managing employee arrival
and departure times. PSS needed
greater transparency for timesheet and
billing purposes. In addition employees
were wasting valuable time travelling to
PSS depots to collect company vehicles
before heading on to customer sites. PSS
wanted to allow staff to use vehicles for
travel to and from home but needed to
manage out of hours private use.
The Strategy
PSS decided to implement a tracking system
that would allow it to:
• Pay staff only for onsite working time
• Reduce fuel costs by allowing drivers to
travel direct from home to the worksite
• Ensure that company vehicles are not
being used for private mileage
• Improve timesheet reconciliation, billing
accuracy and dispute resolution
• Improve performance and punctuality
• Improve customer service
PSS evaluated a number of tracking suppliers
to help it meet these goals.
The Decision
SimplyTrak was chosen due to its understanding
of PSS’s business objectives and
willingness to help identify improvement
areas and achieve potential benefits. SimplyTrak’s
customer commitmentand nonaggressive
sales tactics stood out against
its competitors. | The Bottom Line
Today PSS has greater control over its
vehicle fleet and employees. The Simply‐
Trak system has enabled it to reduce its
fleet costs whilst providing vehicles for
employee to travel to and from site. Savings
have been made in fuel, maintenance,
lease fines and fixed penalties.
More accurate timesheet reconciliation
has led to substantial labour cost reductions.
All of this has contributed to an improved
customer experience.
Return on Investment
PSS calculated the costs of its investment
in software, hardware and personnel over
a 1 year period to quantify its return from
the SimplyTrek deployment. It identified
the following benefit areas.
• 10% reduction in fleet fuel costs
• Reduction in excess mileage and penalty
fines on leased vehicles
• Improved employee performance and
reliability
• Improved Customer Satisfaction due to
punctual employee arrival and departure
times
• Elimination of speeding fine liabilities | | | |
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