E.ON cut its business mileage on vans by 20% and on cars by 9% last year thanks to monitoring fuel card activity and setting target economy figures.

The utility company’s fleet of 6,000 vehicles is spread across several businesses.

Last year it started to provide each of the operational businesses with detailed information on vehicle mileage, in particular visibility of fuel card activity, in terms of miles driven and fuel purchased.

E.ON fleet manager David Graham, says: “Managers could see which drivers had or hadn’t recorded their mileage.”

Not only has this improved accuracy, it also improved the frequency with which E.ON received mileage data.

The other step the company took was to create target economy figures for each commercial vehicle.

“We adjusted the manufacturer’s mpg for a given vehicle because, like many utility companies, we carry quite a lot of kit in our vans,” Graham says.

“So we created what we believe was a realistic target mpg for a vehicle. We’ve worked out what mileage a van on a particular job, in a particular part of the country, should do.

“We then report back to the business unit on a red, amber or green basis, showing what mileage has been done against what we think it should be.”

Red and amber cases are flagged up, which gives the managers the chance to talk to drivers about their mileage.

Graham says that the impact on drivers has been two-fold: “It has caused them to be aware that their line managers are interested in the miles they do and to think more carefully about their journeys.

“They now cut out unnecessary trips, such as going backwards and forwards between sites and depots, and that has reduced their mileage and carbon emissions.

“The other effect is that it gives them an indication of how they are driving, making them more aware of fuel consumption, mileage and carbon emissions,” he adds.

Graham says that business miles have reduced by almost 20% on the 3,500-plus van fleet in the past year.

On the 2,500-plus car fleet, a 9% reduction has been achieved.

“We’ve taken a slightly different approach with our car fleet,” he says.

“Unlike with vans, fuel cards are not mandatory. We run an employee car ownership scheme and we can’t force drivers to use fuel cards.

“Sometimes they use them and sometimes they don’t.

Consequently, E.ON has started providing business units with the mileage claimed by car drivers rather than the mileage driven.

Most of the units have then put targets in place to encourage drivers to reduce their business miles by using electronic meeting solutions like tele-conferencing or video-conferencing and planning their journeys better.

“Instead of going to one of our buildings twice a month they may now only go once a month or not travel at all,” Graham says.

This year will see “more of the same”, he adds, with the methods already in place to reduce mileage continuing.

In addition, Graham intends to roll out telematics to the majority of the van fleet over the next few years.

Trials have already been carried out on 100 vehicles within the Energy Services Business and by August 1,000 vans should be fitted with telematics.

“We see it as a business need as the telematics is being used for work scheduling, but we expect the by-product to be a reduction in business miles,” Graham says.