Tom Coffey, Merchants Fleet: Eying US Fleet management trends

By Daniel Bland- October 25, 2022

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By providing flexible funding and service options for organizations that leverage vehicles to run their operations, Merchants Fleet offers comprehensive & customizable fleet solutions in North America. While its Innovation Center is in Chicago, Illinois, its headquarters is in Hooksett, New Hampshire.

During the Merchants Fleet Summit which took place in Hooksett a few weeks ago, in between EV test drives and networking, I was able to sit down and talk about some of the US fleet management trends with Tom Coffey, a 38-year fleet industry veteran who is Senior Vice President of Fleet Sales and Consulting for Merchants Fleet.

Photo: Global Fleet Editor Daniel Bland and Tom Coffey (source: Global Fleet, Daniel Bland)

First of all, I know you are growing very fast. CEO Brendan Keegan mentioned fleet assets between US$2-2.5 billion so that is around 70,000 vehicles, right?

Coffey:?Yes, at least 70,000 in funded assets, and then we manage at least 165,000 vehicles. These numbers are rising though. And these are real numbers. I am not inflating them in any way, which does happen in our industry.?

Ok great, so it looks like you will be nearing a total of 250,000 vehicles soon. I have a question about safety which has hit the headlines a lot lately. What safety tips do you have for fleet managers?

Coffey:?Right now, some of the best safety tools are, of course, telematics. You can evaluate driver performance such as hard braking and abrupt acceleration as well as diagnose engine performance, more so for internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles.

Although you can see driver speed, you don’t really know if they were above the speed limit on some more outdated tools, but you can usually get a good idea if you know the route they were on.

So, using telematics and having a driver score card to make sure your drivers are compliant with your policy is the best safety tool you can have. Make sure you implement technology that is as close to real time as possible. Many telematics systems offer data that is minutes behind.

If needed, provide driver improvement courses or other disciplinary actions. Remember that safety is good for the well-being of your drivers, but it also results in cost savings.

How is telematics implemented?

Coffey:?Many fleet management companies (FMC) supply this to their clients, either online or at a customer portal, partnering up with another company to acquire data. This can be done with Device Enabled Vehicles or through LIS (Laboratory Information System) Connectivity.

For us, nearly 50% of all the vehicles that we lease or manage are set up with LIS, no device is needed.

And how does LIS Connectivity work? See more here...