Right Sizing Leads to $800,000 Savings for Forsyth County, NC

Since implementing FleetCommander fleet and motor pool technologies, the Forsyth County, NC automotive division achieved significant savings by eliminating 8% of their total fleet, streamlining key management processes, and slashing by 50% the County’s expenses for personally owned vehicle (POV) usage.

In only 100 days, Forsyth County, N.C. significantly slashed the cost of managing its vehicles by implementing FleetCommander technology. As reflected in the county’s proposed budget for the next fiscal year, the savings were real and immediate: “We have included a significant decrease ($-300,000) for non-emergency vehicles. This was done in conjunction with moving to several motor pools within the county.”

Replacement Costs Averted

Officials at Forsyth County say that automating their motor pool processes has given them the data needed to make decisions to reduce the fleet. Forsyth County’s fleet serves 2,000 users and fields more than 400 requests for vehicles on a daily basis.

“The 30 vehicles we cut were eligible for replacement. It would have cost the county $800,000 to replace those vehicles, not to mention ongoing maintenance and depreciation expenses that would have been associated with those new vehicles. That’s a considerable savings,” says Kevin Rogers, Forsyth County’s fleet manager.

Rogers says he anticipates being able to use FleetCommander’s utilization reports to make further fleet reductions and composition adjustments in the coming years.

Start by Automating Fleet Processes

Using FleetCommander, Forsyth County transitioned from cumbersome legacy systems, spreadsheets, and logbooks to a fully automated motor pool system. “We knew if we didn’t save money by cutting vehicles, we’d have to cut elsewhere, including staff,” says Rogers. Once FleetCommander went live, Forsyth County was able to cut 30 vehicles from their fleet while still meeting the needs of fleet users. The county immediately realized an annual savings in excess of $120,000 in the out years. "By utilizing FleetCommander software, we were able to right size the fleet while ensuring that transportation is available to employees when needed. The county fleet was immediately reduced by 30 vehicles, and this number may increase as usage data is collected," said Forsyth County General Services Department Business Manager Sara Warmuth.

Forsyth County rolled out FleetCommander to four locations that manage 127 of its total 620 vehicles. Forsyth’s fleet serves 2,000 users and fields more than 400 requests for vehicles on a daily basis.

Three locations are now equipped with touch screen, self-service kiosks, and secure key boxes that distribute and collect keys. The fourth location manages the motor pool using the web-based software's graphical dispatching tools. Agile Fleet technology has enabled county executives to analyze day-to-day fleet utilization statistics and recognize significant cost-cutting measures.

50% Reduction of POV Expenses

Rogers cited having visibility into their fleet’s utilization has been crucial to giving the county better control over its vehicles. “We can green our fleet by putting the right vehicles in the right areas and putting mileage on older model vehicles rather than have them sit there unused,” he says. “We now have total control of our vehicles. We can see when some groups have unused vehicles while others must use their own personal vehicles at the county’s expense to conduct official business.

“Sharing vehicles among departments has enabled us to significantly cut POV reimbursements that were a considerable expense to our county,” he says. POV expenses were targeted for reduction when the county first rolled out FleetCommander in 2011. “We have more than surpassed our goals by reducing POV by 50%. That alone has been a huge success for us,” Rogers says.

Three of the county’s locations are equipped with touchscreen, self-service fleet kiosks, and secure key boxes that distribute and collect keys. The fourth location manages the motor pool using FleetCommander’s graphical dispatching tools.

Additional Efficiencies

In addition to the motor pool capabilities, Forsyth County fleet managers are using FleetCommander for asset management, driver management, policy enforcement, reporting, communication with fleet drivers, and more.

Other efficiencies realized by Forsyth County include:

• Replacing labor-intensive, paper-based vehicle request processes with online reservation forms.
• Communicating and enforcing the county's fleet policies automatically using the online request capabilities.
• 24 x 7 access to vehicles at motor pool locations using self-service kiosks and secure automated key systems.
• Utilizing real-time, automatically updating fleet dashboards to alert staff of ways to reallocate vehicles or reduce fleet size.

Still Need Help?

Still have questions about how to launch fleet management technology? For a free consultation, reach out to our experts at (571) 498-7555 x1 or?set up a custom FleetCommander demo here.