Fleet management

The cost of owning a fleet includes both the fixed and variable costs for both vehicles and personnel. Fixed costs are incurred in the acquisition and depreciation of vehicles, purchase of equipment such as GPS and routing software, and taxes and insurance. Fixed costs are also incurred for the salaries of drivers and dispatchers, and equipment for drivers such as mobile phones. Variable costs relate to fuel and spare parts such as tires, vehicle damages, and overtime payments to drivers. Fleet management may become complex for several reasons vast expanse of the network of destinations covered demand may not be known with certainty before dispatching the shipment and the uncertainty in time needed to make full truck load at a hub. 

Customer demand (pick-up, delivery, split delivery) is often the major source of uncertainty. Customers may book transportation weeks in advance, but the information about customer locations, demand quantities, and demand timing may not be known with certainty in advance of execution. Decisions must be made with the best information available, while accounting for the uncertainty of the parameters to minimize the expected risk. A related issue is what prices should be charged for different lanes (origin-destination pairs) at different time periods (Topaloglu and Powell 2007). 

Efficient fleet management must build in real-time updating of decisions, as the information that is used to make decisions may change unexpectedly. For example, a customer may cancel his/her order, delay it, or ask it to be delivered at a different location, while the shipment is on its way. In such cases the trucks would need to be rerouted to the closest hub or to a different destination. In local pickup or deliveries, certain pick-ups cannot be executed, if one or more of preceding drop-offs could not be completed. 

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Services. These iaclude telephone system FAX machines mail moves deUveries tmcks and vehicle fleet management janitorial and housekeepiag services landscapiag and gardening water treatment and waste disposal reproduction, eg, copyiag machines, blue-line machines, and printing furniture control tool rental and maintenance and instmment rental and caUbration. 

Crainic, T. G. and G. Laporte, eds. Fleet Management and Logistics. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Boston/Dordrecth/London (1998). 

The impetus for this book was the knowledge that thousands of fleet managers and engineers would seek information about alternative fuels. Through this bode, Mr. Bechtold shares his unique and valuable experience with readers in an effort to foster the development and understanding of alternative fuels use. 

Transportation, Aircraft Engines, Rail Systems Truck Fleet Management... 

Ultimately, the question is whether fleets represent a way to jump-start the consumer market for hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. According to the gao report, several fleet managers and representatives of the automobile industry acknowledge it is unlikely that usage of alternative fuel vehicles by these fleets will convince the general public to buy them. 14 Thus, while fleets remain an important entry market for fuel cell vehicles, we will probably need a different strategy to achieve broad commercialization. 

Transit fleet management enables more efficient transit operations, using enhanced passenger information, automated data and fare collection, vehicle diagnostic systems, and vehicle positioning systems... 

Using a device capable of performing multiple functions (fleet management systems, dispatching devices, smart phones, citizens band radios, music players, etc.) for a purpose that is not otherwise prohibited in Part 392. 

Cheung et al. (2008) developed a mathematical model for dynamic fleet management that takes into consideration dynamic data, such as vehicle locations, travel time, and incoming customer orders. The model is able to efficient re-optimize the route plan as dynamic information arrives, and it includes a genetic algorithm procedure for solving the static vehicle routing problem, and a quick heuristic procedure for dynamic updates of the vehicle routes as new data arrive. 

With such massive movements, the availability of hopper cars to deliver to the port became an increasing issue. In 1976, Sultran was formed by the sulfur producers to operate the rail fleet, manage the bulk sulfur movements by hopper cars to Vancouver, and to negotiate rail rates. In 1981, Sultran added 680 rail cars to their fleet to expedite the shipments of sulfur to Vancouver and purchased PCT in Port Moody from Cominco. Pacific Coast Terminal (PCT) is one of two sulfur terminals in the Vancouver area the other is Vancouver Wharves (purchased by BC Rail in 1993 taken over by Kinder Morgan in 2007). PCT dredged their berth to accommodate Panamax-sized vessels in 1995. 

BIE 11] Belli M., Belli A., Rossi R., Trends in models and algorithms for fleet management , Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences, vol. 20, pp. 4-18,2011. 

CMRS network devices such as smartphones, tablets, fleet management systems, global positioning system (GPS) navigational units, and onboard telematics devices (referr to collectively as wireless mobile data devices ) have the capability of transmitting and receiving the same information between the driver and the inspection site as the dedicated short-range communication... 

In a small fleet organization, a vehicle operator is just as responsible for controlling and preventing accidents as the manager of a large fleet. Vehicle accidents can be especially detrimental to a small fleet because they can be costly. In an effort to prevent accidents, small fleet managers must implement each part of a successful motor fleet safety program. 

Small motor fleet companies should incorporate complete applications, screening, background checks, physical examinations, and testing into the driver selection process. There is less room for error in a small fleet than in larger ones. Every effort should be made to obtain good drivers who hold safety as a number one priority. The steps just outlined should help small fleet managers select highly qualified individuals to operate their motor vehicles. 

Small fleet managers should always set their goals high. In fact, small fleet managers should set their performance to match the performance of a large vehicle fleet with a full-time safety... 

What are five criteria that a fleet manager must look at when developing a process to measiure the program s success ... 

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