Rivus appointed by SGN to manage commercial fleet

Gas network company, SGN, has awarded Rivus the fleet management contract for its 1,700 commercial vehicles. 

SGN operates across Scotland and southern England.

The multi-million-pound service, maintenance and repair (SMR), and accident management contract, was awarded in December 2022, following a tender process where SGN sought a long-term partner to keep its critical fleet moving. The contract will start this month (April 2023).

It comes after Holman was awarded what could be the UK’s biggest ever fleet maintenance deal after BT Group ended its long-standing relationship with Rivus.

However, interim chief executive Victoria Knight told Fleet News that Rivus is in a strong position to take on the challenge of replacing the hole left by BT Group's exit, as looks to “diversify” the “breadth and depth” of  its customer base.

The contract win with SGN is an example of this. Lucie Nash, business development director at Rivus, said: “Partnering with SGN is a significant new business win for Rivus.

“We set out at the start of the bid journey to really understand the unique needs of the SGN fleet to find the best solution for their operation.

“What makes Rivus different is that we are a data-driven fleet partner. We can see where we have capacity across our garage network, we know the common parts and faults within a fleet, so can get them ordered in advance or keep them in stock.

“We get vehicles booked into one of our nationwide garages, conduct the necessary service, maintenance and repair work and get them back out on the road.”

She continued: “SGN’s fleet is hyper critical to the success of its operation. They have higher utilisation periods for certain LCVs, so by analysing their vehicle and ancillary servicing data we can merge vehicle and power take off servicing into one single downtime event.

“This, as well as phasing servicing events by region, means we can remove peak times from the servicing schedule and enable higher vehicle availability during SGN’s peak periods to help SGN deliver its critically important customer service levels.”

Mark Johnson, head of fleet at SGN said that thoughout the tender process, Rivus “consistently” demonstrated a strong safety culture with a very proactive approach to fleet management.

“Their positive, can-do attitude and commitment to deliver the high levels of service were just a few of the reasons we’ve chosen them to support our critical fleet,” he added.

“Safety is at the heart of everything we do at SGN, so having a safety-focused and reliable expert looking after our fleet is essential.

“We’re looking forward to working with the Rivus team to deliver excellent service to our drivers and the SGN business”.

The new contract with Rivus started from April 1, for a period of up to seven years.