Grey fleet travel refers to mileage in employee-owned vehicles – a grey area, where millions of hidden miles are travelled each year and often overlooked by employers and employees alike.

In the public sector, evidence indicates that grey fleet makes up around 57% of total road
mileage. Across the whole sector, this could add up to as much as 1.4 billion miles every year!

The management of grey fleet travel plays an important part in supporting three key policy areas of health and safety, environmental sustainability and financial efficiency. It is about removing unnecessary mileage and transferring travel to more environmentally efficient and cost effective alternatives like public transport and hire cars, as well as minimising the risk where employees do use grey fleet for work.

The Environment Agency embarked on a programme to reduce emissions from its business mileage back in 2001. This study charts the progress up to May 2008 and documents some of the of policy changes, implementation activities and lessons learned along the way.

How you can tackle grey fleet
Any department or authority can take some steps to addressing grey fleet through:
• Presenting the impacts of grey fleet travel to senior managers and highlighting potential
benefits, including cost savings, to encourage their support for action;
• Setting Travel Policy to restrict unnecessary grey fleet usage and promote other forms of transport where these are offer better value for money or lower environmental impact;
• Gathering management information on travel in private vehicles to help comply with duty of care legislation and prompt employees to justify the requirement to use their own car.

The OGC has produced a paper on Grey Fleet Best Practice and a Sample Business Case that may be useful in presenting the issues to senior managers. There are also several other Case Studies explaining what has already been done in this area and providing suggestions for other organisations. If you wish to register your interest in the work being done on grey fleet, please contact the OGC Service Desk on 0845 000 4999.

How the Environment Agency tackled grey fleet
The Environment Agency is ‘the leading public body for protecting and improving the
environment in England and Wales’, with 22 National Services and around 11,500 employees.

In 2001/02, the Environment Agency travelled:
- 53.6 million business miles annually, including mileage in official vehicles, lease, hire and private vehicles
- 8.4 million business miles annually in employee-owned vehicles

Action timeline

Stage One
In 2001/02, the Environment Agency decided to take the lead in management of business travel in a bid to ‘green the Agency’s miles’. The strategy included the following key components:
• Organisational commitment: an ambitious target to reduce total emissions from business
travel by car by 50% by March 2007, on a baseline year of 2001/02.
• New policy: a clear policy setting out that where a car was the right travel option, all return journeys exceeding 50 miles should be undertaken using a hire car rather than an employeeowned vehicle. The policy emphasised that a private car was the last option for travel.
• Implementation: guidance to staff and line managers that they must consider all travel
options prior to making a business journey, using the ‘Hierarchy of Decision Making’ tool.

Stage Two
After initial success in reducing grey fleet mileage by 23% by 04/05, the Agency re-launched its programme to cut its mileage in 06/07, with a number of new features:
• Revised policy: the threshold, over which employees would not be authorised to drive their own car for business purposes, would now stand at 100miles return journey.
• Implementation controls: monthly review of employee mileage claims nationally; identification of claims for round trips over 100miles; and issue of polite reminders of the policy to individual employees and their line managers.
• Documentation checks: annual checks of driver licences, MOT certificates, insurance and
breakdown cover for all grey fleet drivers

Benefits achieved
The Environment Agency has achieved a 53% overall reduction in grey fleet mileage since
2001/02, against a 25% growth in employee numbers.

In 2007/08 alone, a 20% reduction was achieved on the previous year’s grey fleet mileage, bringing this mileage down to less than 4 million miles annually. This was supported by an overall reduction in all business mileage across the organisation, meaning fewer miles travelled in any road vehicle.

Emissions Reduction
The environmental impact of this 53% reduction in grey fleet mileage is significant for the
Environment Agency. Annual carbon emissions from grey fleet have been reduced by around 1,470 tonnes on 2001/02 levels (based on Defra guidance 2006).

Health & Safety Benefit
The Environment Agency has also achieved health and safety benefits in moving employees rom their own vehicles to newer hire cars with up-to-date safety features (air bags, ABS) and tansferring some responsibility for vehicle maintenance to hire car companies.

Direct Cost Saving
The reduction in grey fleet miles in 2007/08 generated direct cost savings of £1 million.

Key success criteria – how the Environment Agency made it work

Control measures
The Environment Agency has worked hard to combine changes in policy on grey fleet with tighter processes for managing mileage claims and policy compliance. It has implemented an incremental approach to reducing business mileage, by setting policy and then developing a range of methods to ensure employees adhere to it. Examples of tactics used include:
- the 100-mile daily limit on grey fleet travel, requiring alternative means of travel to be sought for journeys in excess of this
- the Agency’s IT systems are used to check grey fleet mileage claims and ensure compliance with the 100-mile threshold; any claims over the threshold can be followed up directly with the individual.

Target setting
The Agency also set targets for mileage reduction at regional directorate level, in order to
promote ownership and accountability for mileage reductions. This included:
- tailored ten-point action plans to support the reduction in mileage in each of the regions
- the organisation’s balanced scorecard methodology incorporates performance indicators
linked to business mileage levels, meaning that regional managers report specifically on
miles travelled within their regions
- Regions, areas, teams and in some cases individuals have personal mileage targets
- Performance against mileage targets is reviewed in directorate meetings

Senior-level support
Senior management support is vital for the success of grey fleet policy changes. Environment Agency senior management has been very supportive of the strategy for reducing business mileage and this has set an example for the rest of the organisation. The Chief Executive, Directors Team and Operational Management Team actively promote the use of public transport.