From a fleet management perspective, a grey fleet is easy to ignore, precisely because it is unowned. But to do so jeopardises the health and safety of your employees, and the reputation of your company.
By fulfilling your duty of care obligations in this area, your business will also benefit as an efficient grey fleet leads to improved business performance.
We have put together a list of what should be considered to ensure good grey fleet management.
Responsibility
The reason grey fleet is often overlooked is simply because nobody is responsible for it. The key is to assign it to an individual manager, from the Fleet, HR or even Health and Safety department (as risk assessment is an important element of grey fleet management). This will help to make the grey fleet visible within your organisation.
Solution: Client to assign a lead
Policy
Establishing a formal policy will help to clarify responsibilities and ensure that everybody affected knows what is expected. The policy could include safety guidelines and codes of conduct for employees, but also the corporate goals a grey fleet could help to achieve.
Solution: Client to put together a policy with the support of TMC (we can offer best practice advice)
Risk assessment
There is plenty of readily available data to help companies assess the various elements of risk for their grey fleet.
Existing corporate KPIs like worker response times could reveal organisational risks, vehicle data might indicate safety risks, insurer information is an interesting source of accident data, and telematics could reveal a wealth of information. However, requesting, obtaining and collating information on dozens or hundreds of drivers is time consuming and requires significant amounts of resource to be committed by your business.
Solution: TMC’s Mileage Capture and data systems can be used for every employee who drives on business. We can add in and consolidate data from various sources – insurer information, telematics information and highlight potential issues
Fitness to drive
Companies should ensure every employee is fit to drive regardless of whether they drive a company car or operate a grey fleet vehicle.
Solution: Visa to Drive handles the entire end-to-end process of checking driving licences. Replacing cumbersome paper-based administration, Visa to Drive makes use of a highly- secure, web-based portal and an electronic exchange of driving licence data to check and verify individuals’ driving licence details.
Driver documentation
The same goes for driver documentation: grey fleet drivers need to be in possession of a valid driving licence and should not in any way be legally excluded from operating the vehicles that they drive. It is also advisable to have a full view of drivers’ history, in assessing their fitness to drive.
Solution: Powered by TMC’s market-leading software and team of expert auditors, the award-winning Visa to Drive is the most efficient way of completing documentation checks across your fleet for duty of care compliance. From driver licences to MOT and insurance details, Visa to Drive will ensure that every driver in your fleet has been given express permission to drive on company business.
Driver risks
Annual mileage, driver incidents and driver training history are all elements to consider when assessing the risk of any driver. However, for grey fleet drivers, this is often unknown. Data collection can play a major role in filling in knowledge gaps, especially regarding driver behaviour, and on tracking behaviour over time.
Solution: Deploy TMC mileage Capture systems for all employees who claim business trips. TMC can then consolidate the data and highlight potential issues. Our solutions can include holding times and distances for the daily commute as well as employee’s business travel requirements.
Time and fatigue management
Effective management of driver journeys includes avoiding fatigue behind the wheel. Rules on driving times and break times should be included in a road safety policy.
Solution: TMC will check actual time behind the wheel and highlight any deviations to policies set.
Vehicle safety
A key element of duty of care is to ensure that all vehicles, whether company-owned or grey fleet, are safe to drive at all times. Because grey fleet maintenance is outside the company’s control, vehicle safety could be compromised. It is in the interest of the company that grey fleet vehicles too are fit for purpose. Vehicle age and mileage limits will help eliminate high risk vehicles. Checks should be put in place to ensure compliance with safety ratings and maintenance records.
Solution: Visa to Drive will provide you with an auditable record demonstrating that every vehicle within your fleet has been subjected to regular safety checks. At intervals specified by your fleet policy, drivers will be required to log onto the TMC system and complete a declaration that they have checked their vehicle’s tyres, wipers, lights, etc. as required. With our mobile app, they can also scan in images of the vehicles. TMC will review this data and ensure compliance.
Visa to Drive from TMC
Visa to Drive uses TMC’s award-winning web-based software along with its team of expert auditors to collect, collate and verify your employees’ documentation. Visa to drive does everything from chasing up drivers for documentation to verifying every detail. At every step, you’ll receive in-depth management information that will enable you to have total visibility and control over fulfilling your duty of care obligations.
Our experienced audit team will check every detail on your fleet’s documents to ensure that everyone is compliant with the legal requirements as well as your fleet policy
Visa to Drive gives you access to an online reporting suite that will enable you to see, in real-time, the status of your duty of care and driver licence checks.
To find out more click here.
