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FleetPedia

The Public Fleet Reference

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Fleet 101

A plain-language path through public fleet management, from what a fleet is to how its performance is judged. Five modules, in order.

Fleet 101 — Assets and Fleet Composition

  1. Public Fleet The vehicles and equipment a government owns or leases to deliver public services, from police, fire and EMS response vehicles…
  2. Motor Vehicle A vehicle operated principally for highway transportation of people or property. The phrase matters because it is the line between…
  3. Off-Road Equipment The machines a fleet owns and maintains that are not principally for highway use: mowers, loaders, backhoes, skid steers, generators,…
  4. Gross Vehicle Weight Rating The maximum loaded weight of a single vehicle as specified by its manufacturer. It is a rating assigned at build,…
  5. Vehicle Weight Class The eight-step scale that sorts vehicles by GVWR, from Class 1 under 6,000 pounds to Class 8 above 33,000 pounds.…
  6. Light Duty, Medium Duty and Heavy Duty The everyday grouping of vehicle classes into three bands. The boundaries are not fixed: federal agencies draw the light duty…
  7. Truck In federal safety standards, a motor vehicle with motive power, other than a trailer, designed primarily to transport property or…
  8. Bus In federal safety standards, a motor vehicle with motive power, other than a trailer, designed for carrying more than 10…
  9. Multipurpose Passenger Vehicle A vehicle designed to carry 10 people or fewer, built either on a truck chassis or with special features for…
  10. Vocational Vehicle In trade usage, a truck configured for a working task rather than hauling freight. In EPA regulation it is a…
  11. Asset Lifecycle The full span of an asset from acquisition through operation and maintenance to disposal, and the practice of planning and…
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Fleet 201 — Maintenance and Shop Operations

  1. Preventive Maintenance Servicing performed on a set schedule to keep a vehicle from failing, rather than in response to a failure that…
  2. PM Compliance The share of scheduled preventive maintenance completed within its window. Commonly targeted at 90 percent, and often far below it…
  3. Work Order The record of a single job on a single asset: what was wrong, what was done, which parts were used,…
  4. Fleet Management Information System The system of record for a fleet: the inventory, the work orders, the parts, the costs and the history of…
  5. Downtime Time a vehicle is unavailable to the department that needs it. Usually counted in days out of service, and usually…
  6. Vehicle Availability The share of a fleet, or of a class within it, that is ready for service at a given moment.…
  7. Road Call A failure that happens while the vehicle is in service, requiring assistance away from the shop. The most expensive kind…
  8. Comeback A vehicle returning for the same problem shortly after it was repaired. A direct measure of repair quality, and one…
  9. Technician-to-Vehicle Ratio How many assets each technician is responsible for. The usual starting point for a staffing argument, and a number that…
  10. Wrench Time The share of a technician's paid hours actually spent working on vehicles, as opposed to waiting, walking, sourcing parts or…
  11. Parts Fill Rate The share of parts requests filled immediately from stock, rather than ordered. The link between inventory policy and how long…
  12. Deferred Maintenance Work a fleet knows is needed and has not done, usually because of budget, staffing or vehicle availability. A liability…
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Fleet 301 — Budgeting and Cost Recovery

  1. Capital and Operating Budgets The two separate pots a public fleet draws from: capital buys the vehicle, operating runs it. They are approved differently,…
  2. General Fund A government main operating fund, holding unrestricted revenue such as taxes. It pays for most services, and a fleet funded…
  3. Vehicle Replacement Fund A dedicated fund that accumulates money toward replacing vehicles and equipment, so replacement is a schedule that is paid into…
  4. Internal Service Fund A fund that operates the fleet as an internal business, recovering its costs by billing the departments it serves rather…
  5. Chargeback Rate What the fleet bills a department for a vehicle or a service. Usually a monthly asset charge plus maintenance and…
  6. Cost Recovery Whether the fleet collects enough from the departments it serves to cover what it actually costs to run, including the…
  7. Total Cost of Ownership Every cost an asset incurs across its whole life, not only its purchase price: acquisition, fuel, maintenance, downtime, insurance, and…
  8. Lifecycle Cost Analysis The method used to find the point in an asset life where total cost per year or per mile is…
  9. Replacement Cycle The age, mileage or condition at which a class of asset is planned for replacement, and the schedule that follows…
  10. Cost Per Mile Operating cost divided by distance traveled, or by hours for equipment. The most quoted fleet number and one of the…
  11. Vehicle Equivalent Unit A weighting that expresses assets in terms of the maintenance effort they demand, so a fire apparatus and a sedan…
  12. Depreciation The accounting spread of an asset cost across its useful life. In a fleet fund it is also the mechanism…
  13. Residual Value What an asset is expected to be worth at the end of its service life, and what it actually returns…
  14. Motor Pool A shared set of vehicles reserved as needed rather than assigned to a department or individual. The usual answer to…
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Fleet 401 — Acquisition and Disposal

  1. Specification The written description of what the agency is buying. In competitive procurement it is the main lever a fleet has…
  2. Invitation for Bid The sealed competitive process used when an agency knows exactly what it wants and is selecting on price. The standard…
  3. Lowest Responsible Bidder The award standard in competitive bidding. Two separate tests hide inside it: whether the bid met the specification, and whether…
  4. Request for Proposal The competitive method used when the agency knows the problem but not the exact solution, and can weigh factors other…
  5. Cooperative Purchasing Buying through a contract that another public entity has already competitively awarded, so the agency gets a compliant purchase without…
  6. Piggyback Contract Using another public agency contract directly, rather than a purpose-built cooperative one. Depends entirely on the original contract permitting it.
  7. Sole Source Buying without competition because only one vendor can genuinely meet the need. Allowed in most jurisdictions, and required to be…
  8. Bid Protest A formal challenge by a vendor to how a solicitation was written, run or awarded. The mechanism that makes the…
  9. Chassis and Body Most public fleet work vehicles are bought in two parts: a chassis from one manufacturer and a body or upfit…
  10. Upfitting Fitting a vehicle with the equipment that makes it usable for the job, after it leaves the factory. Often a…
  11. Lead Time The time between placing an order and taking delivery. In public fleet it interacts badly with fiscal years, and it…
  12. Surplus The formal status an asset is given when the agency no longer needs it, and the step that must happen…
  13. Remarketing Getting the most back from an asset at the end of its service life: how it is prepared, when it…
  14. Public Auction The usual route by which a public agency sells retired vehicles: an open competitive sale, now most often online.
  15. Online Auction Selling surplus assets through an internet auction platform rather than a physical sale. Now the default route for most public…
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Fleet 501 — Performance, Utilization and Policy

  1. Key Performance Indicator A small number of measures a fleet manages by, chosen because they change what somebody does. Most fleets report many…
  2. Fleet Utilization How much a vehicle is actually used, against how much it would need to be used to justify holding it.…
  3. Right-Sizing Adjusting the size and mix of a fleet to what the work actually requires. Usually means removing vehicles, and is…
  4. Benchmarking Comparing your fleet against peers or against a published figure. Useful when the definitions match and misleading when they do…
  5. Telematics In-vehicle hardware reporting location, engine data and driver behavior. The main source of usage data a modern fleet has, and…
  6. Idle Time Time an engine runs while the vehicle is stationary. A standard target for fuel and emissions savings, and one where…
  7. Fleet Policy The written rules governing who gets a vehicle, how it is used, who maintains it and how it is replaced.…
  8. Take-Home Vehicle A vehicle an employee keeps overnight at home. Operationally justified in several public roles, politically exposed in all of them.
  9. Fleet Safety Program The structured set of driver, vehicle and process controls a fleet uses to reduce crashes. In the public sector the…
  10. Fuel Management How a fleet buys, dispenses, controls and accounts for fuel. Usually the second largest operating cost and the one most…
  11. Fleet Electrification Replacing internal combustion vehicles with electric ones across a fleet. In the public sector it is a facilities and utility…
  12. Emissions Inventory An accounting of the emissions a fleet produces, usually derived from fuel consumed. Often required by a jurisdiction climate commitment…
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