Fleets in focus: University of Warwick

Last October Graham Hine heard the words that every fleet manager dreads: “There’s been a serious accident involving one of our drivers.”

As soon as his colleague informed him, Hine, transport and travel manager at the University of Warwick, pulled on his coat and ran out to the scene of the accident: Kirby Corner Road, which runs through the university’s campus.

“It was pouring with rain,” Hine recalls. “The road was taped off, there was tarpaulin over our van and the paramedics were there.

"An air ambulance was on standby because they were thinking of airlifting our driver to hospital.

“He had been pulling out of a campus side road on to Kirby Corner Road and was hit sideways by a bus, pushing his van into an oncoming van.

“It was the driver’s door that was hit so he took the full impact. He had a broken hip and pelvis, punctured lung and a bleed on the brain.”

The driver of the other van and the bus driver were in a state of shock, but suffered no physical injuries.

A full police investigation took place with all three vehicles taken away for examination.

As part of the investigation the police contacted Hine to scrutinise the university’s fleet policies and procedures.

It could have been a nerve-racking experience, but Hine was confident of the measures in operation.

“We had everything in place and we were able to produce the evidence immediately,” he says.

“I have a robust system for vehicle checks which puts the responsibility for checking the vehicle every day on the driver.

"They have to complete a form which has to be signed off by their line manager.

"If the driver reports any fault or defect with the vehicle, the line manager has to take action. All of that is recorded so we’ve got an audit trail.

“We were able to show the police the previous six months’ vehicle checks which showed that the vehicle had no faults or defects.We also produced the service records to show the vehicle had been serviced.

“The police said ‘did you check the driver’s licence?’ and we were able to pull a copy of his driving licence out of the file with a declaration attached from the driver and line manager.

"They have to declare that it is a true and accurate record of the driving licence and if there are any changes it is the driver’s responsibility to notify the university.

“We had checked his licence in February and he had a clean licence.

“The police also asked about driver training and the driver’s accident history. His record was completely clean.

"He hadn’t had driver training because he wasn’t deemed high risk, he just drove the delivery van round the campus.”

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However, the accident was the driver’s fault. Hine explains: “He looked left as he was pulling out. The other van was coming towards him on the other side.

“He assumed that the van had signalled for him to pull across in front of him. But he didn’t look right and on his side of the road, heading towards him at 28mph, was the double-decker bus.”

After the police investigation, the university conducted an internal investigation and decided that there was nothing it could have done to avoid the accident, it was simply driver error.

The driver received a £250 fine and three points on his licence. He recently returned to work at the university and will be undergoing driver training.

“It’s been a real test of our policies and procedures for duty of care,” says Hine. “I would advise other fleet managers to make sure they have got up-to-date, complete records that they can access straight away.”

Putting the right policies and procedures in place was one of the first things Hine did when he was appointed transport manager at the university in 2007.

“It was a completely new role,” he says. “I was given a blank sheet of paper to develop the fleet strategy.”

Over the course of three years, Hine’s vehicle strategy and policies have reduced the university’s transport costs by more than £1 million.

Meanwhile, the number of incident claims has almost halved (from 31 to 18) over the same period of time.

Switching the main funding method from contract hire to outright purchase and extending the lifecycle of the vehicles has had the biggest impact.

The other savings have come from setting up a bus service for the university’s cleaning staff rather than using 15 minibuses, and downsizing vans (such as going from the Volkswagen Caddy to the Peugeot Bipper and the Ford Transit to the Peugeot Expert).

The university now owns 62% of its fleet.

Cars are still contract hired as they are used by sales reps from the university’s commercial division and travel higher mileage, meaning the maintenance risk is greater.

However, Hine has extended the replacement cycle from three years/60,000 miles to four years/80,000 miles.

Vans were replaced every three years when they were leased, but Hine now runs them to at least five years as they operate around the campus and travel less than 10,000 miles a year.

“We review each van on merit,” Hine says. “If it’s still in good condition and economically efficient we will carry on using it.”

When purchasing vehicles, Hine uses public sector framework agreements (essentially pre-tendered contracts).

He chaired the public sector fleet manager focus group which set up the first frameworks for vehicle lease and vehicle purchase in 2003. Despite this, he has doubts about the effectiveness of frameworks.

“If you’ve got a large fleet, say 500 vehicles, it cuts down the work,” he says. “But I have concerns whether they offer the best value.

“I do a lot of benchmarking when I purchase or lease vehicles and there’s a big variation between what suppliers on a framework quote for the same make and model.

“Best practice is to cherry pick the best deals, but the risk is that you end up with lots of different contract hire providers.”

Hine takes advantage of Government grants to fund vehicles where possible. The university acquired five Smith Edison electric vans through the Low Carbon Vehicle Public Procurement Programme.

“At the time it was a risk because it was all new technology, but we felt it was the right thing to do,” Hine says.

“It was the right decision because they’ve been great. They’ve been reliable, drivers enjoy driving them and they are perfect for the campus environment.”

The university also has two electric cars, two electric mopeds, two electric buggies and some electric quadricycles which are used to maintain the campus.

It has just been awarded a grant through the Plugged-in Midlands programme to install eight electric vehicle charging points across the campus which can be used by visitors, students and staff. Hine has also recently received the green light to launch a bicycle hire scheme.

Most universities get students to pay a deposit for use of a bike for a year, but Warwick University will charge students by the hour.

“Vehicles and drivers are only a small part of my overall responsibility,” Hine says. “My remit includes sustainable transport strategy, travel planning, bus services, and coach, taxi and car hire.

“I get involved in campus development, where it impacts on transport and car parking strategy, as well as how we manage traffic on and off campus.”

As part of the university’s requirement to report on CO2 emissions from commuting, Hine conducts a travel survey every two years. The last survey in 2012 found that total carbon emissions from commuter travel had fallen by 12.74% from 14,006 metric tonnes in 2010 to 12,221 metric tonnes.

Fewer staff and students are travelling to the university by car. They instead choose to cycle, walk or use public transport, including the university bus service which Hine introduced in April 2011. Car sharing has also increased. The university currently has nearly 1,500 members in its car sharing scheme.

Hine enjoys the challenge of being responsible for such a wide remit.

“Every day is different in fleet management and transport,” he says. “You have different challenges and you try to help different people with different needs.”

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Organisation: University of Warwick
Transport and travel manager: Graham Hine
Fleet size: 183 (including 101 vans, 22 cars, 11 minibuses, 17 tractors, seven electric vans and two electric cars
Replacement cycle: Cars four years/80,000 miles. Vans five years
Average mileage: Cars 15,000-20,000. Vans 10,000 miles
Average CO2 emissions: 119g/km
Brands on fleet:  Cars: Audi, BMW, Lexus, Jaguar Land Rover, Ford, Volkswagen, Nissan, Volvo.  Vans: Ford, Peugeot, Volkswagen, Vauxhall

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Career history

Graham Hine’s interest in transport goes back to his childhood.

“My father was a lorry driver in the days when there was no legislation, no tachographs, no drivers’ hours,” he says. “I used to go with him on journeys during my school holidays. That’s where my love of transport started.”

Hine got his first fleet role in 1998 as head of operations at Microroute, a division of IBM that was responsible for service delivery for the retail and finance sector.

“My qualification is business management,” Hine explains. “I worked in sales and marketing and then moved into the operations side.

“At the division of IBM I was responsible for three sites in the UK and part of that responsibility was facilities, warehousing, logistics and the fleet of 450 vans for technicians and engineers.”

In 2001, Hine made the switch from managing vans to a fleet of 250 cars, becoming head of facilities at the Adult Learning Inspectorate (ALI, now part of Ofsted), which inspected colleges and other training providers.

He was named fleet manager of the year 101-400 vehicles at the 2003 Fleet News Awards and was a finalist in four other categories.

The following year he was runner-up in the risk management category and became chairman of ACFO Midlands – a post he held for two years.  

In 2005 he was appointed head of customer services at Hitachi Capital Vehicle Solutions.

“ALI was actually a customer of Hitachi so I went from being customer to supplier,” Hine says.

“It was very interesting and I enjoyed learning about that side of the industry, but I missed the day-to-day involvement of fleet management.

“Being head of customer service, I was more involved in managing a big department with lots of managers providing services.

“As much as I enjoyed that I missed the daily interaction with drivers and the transport side.”

Graham Hine's 2014 fleet agenda

Reviewing the company car policy. “We have a CO2 cap of 150g/km and I’m going to suggest moving
it to 120g/km as our average emissions are 119g/km,” Hine says. “I’m also going to look at the criteria for the choice of cars and the allowance levels.”

Tendering the contract hire agreements. “Our vans are with Northgate and our cars are with Days Contract Hire,” Hine says. “We could potentially move to one supplier for both, but it depends on the bids and who offers best value.”

Outsourcing driver licence checking. “It’s something I want to pursue but I will have to go through the process of doing the research and presenting a paper on it,” says Hine.

Improving grey fleet management. The university has 500-plus grey fleet drivers but there is no one contact point managing them. “I’m going to look at all the elements – how much we reimburse drivers, employee responsibility, duty of care and the costs to the university – to see how we can manage those better,” says Hine.