Fleet Advantage, an innovator in truck fleet business analytics, equipment financing and life cycle cost management (LCCM) announced results of its latest industry survey which shows how companies in different industries had to modify and scale their truck operations because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Fleet Advantage commissioned the online survey during August and found that 36 percent of the companies that responded had to change routes for as many as 40 percent of the trucks in their fleets, and 25 percent have had to change what their trucks are primarily hauling. Much of this shift was a result of the closing of many restaurants across the country, with fleets shifting their routes to handle increased demand for grocery items and retail/merchandise (non-food) delivery.
The survey also illustrated where roughly 50 percent of respondents used less than 30 percent of the typical miles accumulated in routes when the pandemic hit. This also meant that roughly 4 of every 10 fleets were operating at 80 percent of normal utilization. As a result, along with the broader impact from the economy, 27 percent of organizations said they were forced to downsize their fleets.
Proper truck utilization data is critical today to help fleets make accurate, real-time decisions on their trucks, utilization patterns and maintenance and replacement schedules. According to the survey, fleet executives use analytics data to better understand miles driven (76 percent), maintenance data (68 percent), and fuel consumption (55 percent).
Despite the significant advancements in real-time analytics data available, as many as 51 percent of fleet executives admit they are not overly confident they have access to reporting information for properly analyzing their data during COVID-19. In fact, 74 percent of executives either agreed or strongly agreed with the notion that access to better reporting data would help them in their fleet decision-making.
In addition to business volume fluctuations (19 percent) and overall economic uncertainty (10 percent), many fleet executives commented that driver related issues such health concerns, staffing and morale (33 percent) were an immediate priority for them.
“This year has proved challenging for various organizations, their employees and families as they’ve had to navigate through rapid business adaptations as well as health and safety challenges,” said Katerina Jones, Sr. Director, Marketing and Business Development. “Clearly, many companies with fleets had to adapt quickly to drastically different truck utilization patterns, and illustrated the continued need for accurate, real-time data analytics fleet executives can quickly use in order to make proper decisions for their organizations.”
Click here to see the complete results of the survey.