Three Star Trucking, now operating as Vertex, is one of the largest oilfield trucking companies in Western Canada. They contract a wide range of transportation services in harsh environments throughout Canada and the United States. As they have grown, their active number of drivers can fluctuate on a monthly basis. At the time of this success story, Three Star had 165 drivers utilizing the rugged Ranger vehicle device and Vertex had committed to continue using these devices in a number of their units. On average, they see about 150 drivers in their system at any given time. They had previously tried using iPads for their drivers, but managing all of those iPads was a nightmare. They needed a solution that was cheaper, more efficient, more durable and came with extended support. While scouting out potential providers, they noticed that many didn’t have a dedicated support team. As a result, they would have to jump through hoops and call several different providers to ensure they had integrated support solutions that would work with each of their non-integrated systems. They needed a solution that offered full customer support access for each of the modules and systems and provided a dedicated Project Manager.

The federal organization had the challenging task of tracking 36,000 unique assets across multiple locations in North America. They were using a legacy asset management system that did not provide the advanced tracking and security they required. The technology infrastructure supporting this system was also beginning to degrade. They needed advanced tracking both related to and not related to work orders, enhanced reporting features for audits, and customizable security clearances.

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania was faced with the challenge of reducing its fleet size by 20% as part of a mandate by the Governor to make government work smarter and more efficiently while spending less money. The Commonwealth's fleet consisted of 9,886 vehicles, many of which were underutilized or too expensive to maintain. The existing fleet management practices were not optimal, and there was a lack of transparency about the size and status of the fleet. The challenge was to downsize the fleet while maintaining current transportation services for Commonwealth employees.

San Diego County, spanning 4,260 square miles with a population of approximately three million, provides a significant number of regional services to local taxpayers. The County's fleet management division supports over 3,800 vehicles and provides similar services for other government agencies. However, in the '90s, the County faced the challenge of merging two separate fleet operations and migrating from a mainframe application to a client-server. They were also challenged to be competitive when compared to the private sector. These unique challenges led the County to seek bids for a new fleet management information system that could address all issues. The County also faced the threat of privatization and was selected to participate in the County of San Diego’s first managed competition program.

The City of Calgary's fleet services department faces the challenge of monitoring fuel usage on a daily basis due to the potential financial and criminal accountability in the event of a fuel leak. The harsh climate of Calgary, with temperatures ranging from -30°C to +30°C, adds to the complexity of maintaining a watchful eye over fuel tanks. The City operates 16 fueling sites, some of which are so remote and essential that it would be difficult to totally eliminate the City’s fuel operations. Every City employee authorized to dispense fuel to a vehicle is given either a plastic card to swipe through a card reader at the fuel island control unit (ICU) or an employee number which they key in at the ICU keypad.

The Metro Transit system of St. Louis City, St. Louis County and St. Clair County faced many maintenance and reliability challenges that affected service. In addition to too many breakdowns, Metro also faced severe reliability problems with its bus engines. This was the turning point when Metro decided to change the purchase of its bus engines. The most critical maintenance elements affected by this change were the efforts required to maintain fleet engines and transmission reliability. In 2003, Metro adopted AssetWorks FleetFocus to integrate all of the preventative maintenance scheduling, predictive maintenance forecasting, parts data, and other maintenance metrics that the property needed to measure.

As the city of Oxnard, California grew, so did its fleet. The city’s Fleet Services Division is responsible for acquisition, disposal, fueling, maintenance, and repair of the City’s $34 million vehicle and equipment fleet. The fleet is comprised of over 900 vehicles and maintained by 32 technicians. Prior to 2004, the city was relying on a homegrown database with paper work orders. This system was inefficient and lacked historical data. The technicians were also responsible for researching and ordering parts, which was a time-consuming process that took away from their main task of maintaining the fleet vehicles.

The University of Colorado (UC Boulder) operates a motor pool as part of its overall fleet structure. The motor pool serves the many employees of the University who rely on the pool vehicles for anything from short trips around the university to longer term rentals for research trips. However, motor pool vehicles were only available for customers to pick up and drop off Monday through Friday between 8am and 5pm, which was inconvenient for many people who depend on the motor pool service. Customers had to make a request via fax or email which was then processed manually by a Transportation Services staff member. The customer also recorded an odometer reading which was manually input into FleetFocus by the Transportation Services staff member. UC Boulder wanted a solution that would reduce manual entry, improve accuracy and expand service.

In 2006, the State of Utah set an ambitious goal of increasing the state’s overall energy efficiency by 20% by the year 2015. This goal had dramatic implications for all the state agencies, especially its major energy consumers; the Division of Fleet Operations. Fleet Operations is charged with handling State vehicle acquisition, repair, preventive maintenance, surplus, and fueling for those vehicles, as well as offering a daily rental option for state employees needing to complete official state business. Fleet Operations provides support for over sixty agencies including the Department of Transportation, Department of Corrections, the National Guard and all of Utah’s state universities and colleges, totaling some 7,500 vehicles. In 2007, the Utah State Legislature passed House Bill 110 titled “State Fleet Efficiency Requirements” which covers a three-fold objective from the Governor and Legislature: Reduce fleet costs or increase energy efficiency, Improve air quality in Utah by decreasing the carbon output from the state vehicles, Contribute to a general decreased United States dependency on foreign oil.

The State of Oklahoma’s Fleet Management Division was using fuel cards that lacked controls, making it possible for employees to purchase non-authorized items. Employees were required to submit paper reports that had to be manually reconciled with the monthly fuel card bill. This was labor intensive for both the employee cardholders and the administrative team responsible for reconciling the bills. Any discrepancies had to be investigated manually, and due to the delay in time between the purchase and the monthly bill, it was often hard for employees to provide information about the purchases in question.

King County Metro Transit, located in Washington State, is committed to environmentally healthy and energy-wise transportation. The agency has been using AssetWorks FleetFocus™ fleet management software to manage its fleet since the late 90s. However, in 2005, Metro Transit decided it was time to gain even more control over its fuel and fluid usage to prevent waste, theft and the possibility of running out of fuel while en route. They needed a state of the art automated system that accurately tracked fuel and fluids in real-time to look for anomalies and source problems before they cost the agency money.

Gwinnett County, Georgia, is home to over 750,000 residents and has been one of America’s fastest-growing counties for the past twenty years. The Gwinnett County Fleet Management Division is responsible for providing the most efficient and cost-effective support, maintenance, and operation of all Gwinnett County vehicles, associated equipment, and fueling sites. The fleet management department owns and maintains over 2,700 vehicles utilized for road maintenance, parks and public services, police protection and other government business. In addition to the vehicles and equipment in Gwinnett County’s fleet, Gwinnett County provides fuel for over 5,500 vehicles including the Board of Education, the Health Department, Gwinnett Medical Center, the Gwinnett Library System and the cities located inside Gwinnett County. The challenge was to manage these vehicles and fuel consumption in an efficient and cost-effective manner.

The City of Columbus, recognized as one of the best managed fleets in the country, was looking for ways to improve their fleet operations. They had already implemented GPS functionality on approximately 2,500 vehicles, ranging from light duty city vehicles to large bat wing mowers. However, they were looking for ways to leverage this technology to further improve their operations. They were particularly interested in monitoring vehicle location, geofence monitoring, and collecting telematic data such as diagnostic trouble codes, vehicle speeds, and idling times. The challenge was to analyze this data and identify areas where improvements could be made.

The City of Sacramento Department of General Services was committed to having a greener fleet. To achieve this, they needed to establish a baseline of operational metrics to enable them to report on and measure their progress. They also needed to standardize their maintenance practices to improve efficiency. The city decided the first step was to upgrade their technology toolkit. They were using FleetFocus fleet management software from AssetWorks to run the fleet but wanted to upgrade to the newest version to enable advanced features and capabilities such as dashboard and KPI reporting with Crystal reports. Their first priority was to make data-driven decisions.

The City of Portland’s CityFleet department is comprised of six shops and six fuel stations with a budget of $35.8 million. CityFleet is operated by 76 employees that manage the acquisition, repair, maintenance, parts, and fueling of a diverse fleet comprised of 2,850 vehicles and pieces of equipment valued at over $110 million. The fleet serves all of the bureaus in Portland and in order to keep up with demand, CityFleet estimates that nearly $300K worth of maintenance parts sits on the shelves at any given moment. CityFleet processes over 23,000 work orders a year and the process of filling in missing data and closing them was labor intensive.

The City of Chesapeake’s Central Fleet Management (CFM) division, led by Fleet Manager George Hrichak, oversees some 1800 vehicles with an annual operating budget of $9.5 million. The CFM is guided in their work by the division’s mission statement: To provide efficient and cost-effective fleet management services for a safe, economical, and environmentally sound fleet that meets the needs of our customers and which protects the investment of our citizens. In 2002 the City of Chesapeake sought to modernize the technology used by the CFM and seek greater efficiency by moving from an outdated mainframe system to AssetWork’s fully web-enabled fleet management solution; FleetFocus. The transition to FleetFocus provided the City with the robust maintenance and reporting capabilities needed to maintain the fleet’s light and heavy duty vehicles, stationary assets, tools and even the city’s boats.

The City of Austin Fleet Services Department provides fleet management services and fuel for more than 5,200 vehicles that support 20 internal city departments and 10 external customers. With a staff of over 100 technicians, 7 maintenance facilities and 32 fueling sites, Austin Fleet Services is a complex operation that has embraced technology as an effective way to run an efficient fleet operation. The City of Austin has used AssetWorks’ FleetFocus software to manage all of its fleet maintenance operations for over twenty years. However, in 2008, the City of Austin upgraded to AssetWorks’ automated fuel management system, FuelFocus, at all 32 of its fuel facilities.

Michels, a provider of quality construction solutions, was facing challenges in managing their vast fleet of over 12,000 assets spread across multiple locations. They had no maintenance tracking software and the management was done sporadically and on paper. In 2013, they invested in AssetWorks FleetFocus fleet management software to solve these challenges. However, there was one element missing: integrated tool management. With tens of thousands of tools throughout the organization, Michels’ existing solution for tool management wasn’t meeting their expectations. The program they were using to manage their tools at the time was not integrated with FleetFocus, which had already been rolled out to some of their shops and warehouses. They weren’t able to open work orders on tools or track tool inventory, and they didn’t have a convenient way of knowing what they had on the shelf at a given time.

New York City, under the leadership of Mayor Bill de Blasio, launched the Vision Zero Action Plan to combat traffic-related deaths. In 2013, the year before de Blasio was elected mayor, there were 183 pedestrians killed in traffic crashes, the highest number since 2003. The City Fleet, which covers over 29,000 vehicles, needed a highly accurate way to track collision metrics. The metrics tracked include citywide collisions by fleet agency, collisions with injuries, pedestrian injuries, fatalities, collisions by geographic location, and collisions with both moving and non-moving objects. Other important fleet pieces tracked are internal, such as whether or not employees have completed defensive driving courses, state inspections, completed and overdue preventive maintenance, fleet roster and the installation of truck sideguards.

The City of Toronto was in need of a more secure and accurate way of managing its fuel operations. The city was managing over 130 fuel sites that held varying capacities of fuel. The outdated fuel sites required manual fuel volume measurements and calculations, which was an error-prone process that required a lot of human intervention, time, and effort. The city was also facing challenges in reporting on fuel usage and tank levels, which involved a lot of emails, spreadsheets, charts, and paper forms.

Chuck Wolverton, the Fleet/Fuel Systems Administrator for the New Jersey Department of Transportation (NJDOT), is responsible for ensuring the data entry for their fleet and fuel systems is accurate and up to date. He oversees the use of AssetWorks FleetFocus and FuelFocus software, which help monitor preventive maintenance, vehicle mileage, fuel usage and more. However, the job is intensive and data-entry oriented, and many people underestimate the amount of work that goes into operating and maintaining a fleet/fuel system. The challenge is to keep the entire process running smoothly and efficiently, while also reporting KPIs through easy-to-use Dashboards.

The East Bay Municipal Utility District (EBMUD) operated two motor pool lots without an automated system in place. One motor pool used a physical punch clock, while the other used an online form for checking out a pool vehicle. Because this process was manual, pool vehicles could only be reserved in four or eight hour intervals, even if the vehicle was only needed for a shorter period of time. This resulted in inefficiency and labor intensiveness.

In 2016, Scott County, Minnesota faced a significant problem with their Preventive Maintenance Compliance (PMC) reporting for all equipment in the County, which was very low. The two departments that were significantly lower in PMC and were skewing the numbers downward were the Highway Maintenance and the Sheriff’s Departments, averaging about 15%-20% on time compliance. The Sheriff’s Department had unique assets to track, including 25 squad sheriff cars, 5-6 of which run 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Each vehicle racks up approximately 200-350 miles a day. The first challenge was that their equipment class for preventive maintenance (PM) purposes was due at the 400 mile mark. Due to the vehicles’ high daily mileage, they realized that even a day and a half without stopping in the shop could leave that vehicle out of compliance already. The second challenge was a communication gap between the Sheriff’s Department and its maintenance shops. As PM would come due, the shop technician or parts manager would send an email notice to the driver of the vehicle, essentially saying, “Let’s get the PM scheduled.” As one can imagine, drivers in the Sheriff’s Department are very busy with cases, off-hour shifts and other procedural work, which sometimes led to delayed responses to the PM emails. Based on their established PMC mark, these vehicles would end up violating the PMC during the gaps in communication.

Mary Joyce Ivers, the Fleet and Facilities Manager for the City of Ventura, California, oversees 327 on-road vehicles, 67 off-road vehicles and one maintenance facility. The City has a $2.9 million operating budget. The challenge lies in managing fleet costs, scheduling, accountability, labor, historical data, safety recordkeeping and reporting in order to be accountable to both customers and the organization at large. The fleet impacts every department and supports all departments’ delivery of services to the community, making it crucial to maintain efficiency and effectiveness.

Mitch Guenthart, the Fleet Manager for the County of Santa Barbara, California, has been in the fleet industry for 38 years. He is responsible for managing a wide range of complex tasks, including budgeting, complex accounting, accident subrogation, civil service, organizing staff training, and giving presentations. Guenthart receives between 20 and 50 new emails and between 10 and 30 phone calls per day, which he must respond to promptly. He also spends a significant portion of his time managing the business aspects of the fleet, relying on his staff, assistant managers, and shop supervisors to run the more technical aspects of fleet operations.

Shawn Smithson, the Section Manager for Fleet Information & Fuel Systems for the City of Ottawa, is responsible for managing fleet technology and supporting the mechanics, stores personnel, admin staff, and city employees who use the city's 23 fuel sites. His role involves researching new technology and initiatives that could benefit the fleet. The City of Ottawa uses both FleetFocus and FuelFocus, and Smithson spends a significant portion of his day in the software, finding new ways to optimize it for their fleet. During the city’s implementation and upgrade to newer, more secure versions of the software, Smithson and his team were pushed to create manuals, policies, and procedures that would be effective tools for explaining the city’s unique utilization of the highly customizable software.

Prior to implementing AMP, the North Dakota Insurance Department (NDID) was experiencing rapid growth in Total Insurable Value (TIV), operating with a small team, using a valuation tool with limitations, and aware of inaccuracies in insurable values. The development of the Oil & Gas industry in North Dakota had a big impact on the State Fire and Tornado Fund, leading to the expansion of courthouses and the construction of new schools. This growth was a key driver in the build out of a lot of new infrastructure.

Sarah Sabastro, the Senior Fleet Systems Administrator for Exelon B G & E, has a challenging role that involves solving software issues within the fleet management system to optimize the fleet's workflows. Her interaction with AssetWorks software is vital to her role, as she spends about 5 hours a day analyzing quality trends, meantime to service, and forecasting. Sarah's role is critical to the successful utilization of FleetFocus. She starts her day by checking the inbox for all eight of their fleet shops to check for out of service notices. Once she has gathered the necessary information, she meets up with the shop manager to do clean-up on the out of service notices that she received.

Before investing in AssetWorks’ hardware and software solutions, Transystems used two other companies for in-cab mobile computing and fleet management, but large parts of these solutions did not work. These systems relied heavily on driver involvement to function, so they were susceptible to errors. “The margin of error and accuracy wasn’t as good as it could be, and we wanted to be able to automate our processes,” said Brennan. Transystems wanted to work with a company that shares the same value system.

American Electric Power (AEP), one of the largest power companies in the United States, wanted to improve worker safety and reaction time to dangerous incidents, shorten the duration of customer outages, and reduce gas usage for their 4600-vehicle service fleet. To do this, they needed a mobile workforce management system that could display real-time vehicle location information, differentiate vehicle types on dispatchers’ maps, provide in-vehicle directional prompts, and generate vehicle data reports to help better distribute crews based on job demands.