National Grid Wireless
Key contact: Alan Shaw, Fleet Manager
Fleet profile: 174 operational vehicles
Business The UK’s leading provider of large scale transmission infrastructure to providers of wireless communications
Locations: Headquarters in Warwick with regional offices in Bristol, Altrincham and Brookmans Park

Every fleet operator should have at their fingertips comprehensive data highlighting mileage and fuel use across all vehicles driven on business, particularly grey fleet (private cars used for business purposes). 

It is for that reason that Alan Shaw, Fleet Manager at National Grid Wireless, initiated an Energy Saving Trust Green Fleet Review. Now nearing the end of a 12-month statistics gathering exercise, Mr Shaw is about to start implementing a range of Energy Saving Trust recommended initiatives aimed at:
• Saving money by accurately tracking fuel costs
• Reducing the company’s carbon footprint by tightening up procedures to monitor mileage and MPG
• Recording and managing mileage across grey fleet vehicles
• Closely managing at-work driver safety of all employees

National Grid Wireless – a mixed vehicle operation
National Grid Wireless has an all diesel fleet of 174 operational vehicles travelling more than three million miles per year. They also have a significant number of cash allowance employees driving their own cars on business, plus car rental is frequent when employees are required to travel on business on an ad hoc basis.

Mr Shaw enquired about undertaking a Green Fleet Review after reading about the consultancy service in Fleet News. He thought that a comprehensive analysis of the use of the company fleet, grey fleet and rental car usage would help him identify ways of managing business mileage and fuel costs.

While a substantial amount of data was available for operational vehicles – from fuel card management reports to records of drivers reimbursing the company for personal mileage – the only data available for the remainder of the fleet was records of expenses repaid to employees through a ‘pay and reclaim’ system.
 
“The initial profiling of our vehicle use was a great starting point. Many constructive ideas
on managing mileage and costs have come from our Green Fleet Review and that is enabling me to make decisions that will benefit our employees, the business and society.”
Alan Shaw, Fleet Manager, National Grid Wireless.

Action plan
The first Green Fleet Review recommendation was therefore the need to collect informative, robust data. This process started in April 2007 when the company updated its fleet software system to enable the data gathering to begin. When a year’s worth of data providing full details of mileage and fuel costs of all vehicles is available, National Grid Wireless will begin implementing practices to reduce operating costs, improve efficiency and further enhance their corporate social responsibility status by reducing their carbon emissions.

The company’s action plan includes:
• Reviewing the fleet choice list to assess whether liquid petroleum gas and hybrid vehicles could be utilised at specific sites, particularly in London to offset congestion charge costs
• Possible further tightening of the company’s grey fleet policy with an increased focus on encouraging newer and more environmentally-friendly vehicles fitted with the latest safety features (helping meet health and safety obligations)
• The potential introduction of vehicle tracking to improve data information gathering
• Introduction of video and/or audio conferencing at key sites to help reduce vehicle usage

Review promotes constructive ideas
While National Grid Wireless is only beginning to implement changes to its fleet operation, Mr Shaw believes the Green Fleet Review is a route that every company should follow.
He said: “The initial profiling of our vehicle use was a great starting point. Many constructive ideas on managing mileage and costs have come from our Green
Fleet Review and that is enabling me to make decisions that will benefit our employees, the business and society.

“In addition to company vehicles, many businesses forget that hire cars, grey fleet and cash allowances can also fall under vehicle management and managing and controlling these costs means adopting more than one solution. “Nevertheless, from the menu of action points we have been given by the Energy Saving Trust there are a number of initiatives we can put in place to improve the overall efficiency of our fleet, cut costs and ensure the safety of our staff while they are driving.”

Source: Energy Saving Trust

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