Episode 220: Motor Pools Are Back: Right-Size Your Fleet Without Breaking Operations

This is the Fleet Success Show dedicated to helping you and your fleet succeed using the experience of fleet professionals and Hall of Fame fleet legends. The show that explores how the pillars of stakeholder satisfaction, intentional culture, resource efficiency, and risk management all combine to lead your fleet to success. We're glad you're here. Now let's get into the show. Hello everyone, and welcome back to another episode of the Fleet Success Show. I am your host today, Mark Canton. I'm the VP of Product and Consulting at RTA Fleet, the fleet success company. And I am joined by the legendary Tony Jankovic. Tony, how you doing, brother?

I'm doing great, Mark. Always a good time to talk fleet with you.

Oh, man, I'm so excited. You know, for those behind the scenes kind of in studio with us and just kind of heard this big conversation, I have like 4 hours or 5 hours worth of content I want to do with you, but we don't have time for that. We got to have a a reasonable conversation so that I don't snooze everybody off. But I'm hoping to have you back a lot in the next few weeks, and maybe we'll— if folks are interested and we get good engagement, maybe we'll do a little mini-series. So what I really wanted to kind of jump in with you today— you have a lot of experience in this area, I think I do too, um, but I wanted to talk motor pool with you. And, you know, a couple years ago, you know, many years ago, you and I kind of began to predict even before COVID but certainly with COVID you know, that we were going to see an increase in motor pool establishment. A couple of years ago, I was at NASIF and I said, hey, by the end of '27, you're going to see this, this very big uptick in motor pools, people creating motor pools or, or going from an unsophisticated loaner program to a more true motor program. I think we're beginning to see that. And so my first question, you're out there, you're in the field more than I am. I'm back here designing software. You're engaging with the consultants. Is that something that you think you're seeing? Is there a growing interest in pools or, you know, what are your thoughts around that?

Well, I think so, Mark. And I think it's almost a byproduct of something else. I think it's a byproduct of all the fleet utilization studies that we've been doing. You know, everyone is trying to cut costs, improve operations, improve fleet availability, and not only making sure that the vehicles are available, but, accessible as well to other people in the organization. So, you know, I did my first fleet rightsizing study almost 25 years ago with a large state agency, and they had a great motor pool. And that's kind of where I cut my teeth on, on what a good motor pool should encompass. And I think over the last couple of decades or so, you know, we really thought that there would be a bigger push for motor pools. Then when we hit the COVID and people realized that, oh my gosh, you know, maybe we don't need all these vehicles, maybe we don't need to drive across town for every meeting, maybe we can do virtual meetings, and then realized that there was an opportunity to reduce the size of their fleet, but they still needed some transportation alternatives. And so I think that's where we've really seen over the last 3 or 4 years this big push for developing motor pools and not just what I would call a loaner pool where you've got a couple of extra vehicles and somebody drops their vehicle off in the shop and you jump in something and drive it for the day until your vehicle's ready. But I mean a real traditional motor pool where, you know, you reserve a vehicle, it's available when you get there, you've got a specific schedule that you're going to take it out on and bring it back on, uh, you know. And so I think that's what we're seeing nowadays.

It's an internal rental program essentially, right? I mean, yeah. So let's— I have a few different directions I want to go here. Let's start with, um, kind of like why, why would someone want a motor pool? What are the benefits? You touched on a little bit, you alluded to utilization management and that sort of a thing. You know, over the years we've found ourselves, you know, starting a study thinking we're gonna, we're gonna focus on A, and the conclusion we reached is you need a motor pool, you know, those sorts of things. So what are some of like the, the common reasons? Or maybe there's a listener out there who's thinking about it, or maybe hasn't thought about it and maybe should. How do you know that, hey, let's, let's start with the folks who maybe don't have one or maybe only have a loaner pool. Like, what are some signs are there, you know, there may be a reason for you to look deeper into this, but also what are some of the benefits that those folks might, might get from that?

I think where it starts is identifying that there is a need. There is a need for providing transportation to the people in your organization. And I think then we need to start looking at what's the most efficient and cost-effective way to do that. And, you know, with, again, and I will continue to go back to our fleet rightsizing study experience. But what we typically find is there's opportunities where people should be able to share resources, vehicles, pieces of equipment across department lines. And, you know, I came from a city government. That was where I cut my teeth on fleet, spent 12 years there, and I was in operations. So in operations, it's a completely different mindset. It's I need a vehicle. I might only need it once a week. I might need it once, you know, once a month, but I I want that vehicle there. I don't want to have to worry about someone else using it. I don't want someone else to trash it, you know. And so the, the whole concept of ownership of a vehicle, you know, with the departments is not really in the best interest of the organization. What we really want to do is be able to provide that asset across multiple departments. And it— there's always an opportunity to reduce the total number of assets when you share them across departments. So, you know, and I like to use the example of you know, you've got 3 different departments. They all need a, you know, a half-ton pickup truck. Nothing really special about the truck, uh, but, but one uses it on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. One needs it a couple times a week, and one needs it maybe one day a week. And right now, most organizations, they own 3 pickup trucks and they're assigned individually to those 3 different departments. And what we can do is— I mean, it's, it's very simple— we can put them into a shared motor pool. We can eliminate one of them, and everyone's still going to be able to have an opportunity to drive that vehicle, to reserve that vehicle and use that as transportation.

Right. You can design it in a way where I think that's the big fear, right? People like, I don't want it to impact my operations, but it really isn't that difficult in our experience to design it in a way where everyone can get the work done that they need. Again, that's the number one goal of a fleet management organization is to make sure you got the asset you need to get your work done. So, you know, absolutely. You know, and so you kind of expand on that just a little bit more. Like you talk about, we find when we're doing rightsizing these opportunities to share. And you kind of reference it Monday, Wednesday, Friday. So look for when am I using it, right? It's not just how much am I using. A lot of folks on rightsizing, they zone so much in total utilization or miles and they miss the forest through the trees, right? Or whatever that expression is, or the trees through the forest, however it goes. But, you know, there's a lot of opportunity there because of the timing of when it could even be the same day. It could be we both use it on Monday, but you need it from you know, 2 to 5 and I need it from 9 to noon or something like that. Right. So that's one element of it. The other element I think you also kind of alluded to is similar equipment, right? You want to, you want to look for sharing opportunities for equipment. Now, it doesn't mean it's never complex. Certainly the more complex it gets, the harder it is to share. But there is such thing as, you know, I don't know, a truck with a utility bed or a crane on it or something where maybe public works and water can both use that from time to time. Um, so, so that's another element, uh, similar equipment. Um, and then the other thing that jumps out to mind listening to you talking, you know, what are your thoughts here? It's like, I think the other fear, because we talk about fear of not having— the other fear is, is that they think you're going to come in and take all their assets. But that's not really what we're saying here, right? Like, we're saying sort of on the fringe or the edge of that need, right? Like, if you— if we can do the math and show you need 4 trucks And when we do the math, it's like, yeah, you need 4. And once in a while you need the 5th. Well, that 5th is where the pool opportunity comes in. Would you agree?

Absolutely. 100%, Mark. And because, you know, generally you have organizations that there's not very, very, very few operations have a person in a vehicle 100% of the day. Now, take public safety out, take some of the other operations out, maybe, you know, an engineering inspector where they're on site all day and they need a pickup truck all day. That's fine. But typically it's limited use throughout the day or throughout the week. And those are perfect cases, especially when you come, you know, think about light-duty passenger-type vehicles that are generally equipped the same way. You know, those are perfect opportunities to share those assets. And I, and I think, you know, one organization, one city that I worked with many years ago, they had— they took it to the extreme. Their motor pool was essentially every single vehicle and piece of equipment in the city's fleet. So if you were a, you know, a public works street maintenance operator and you've got a construction project that's going to be doing some street cuts and street maintenance work, you would go and you rented not only the backhoe, but you rented the backhoe, the trailer, the truck, and the operator. So you would actually have to program that project and, and you essentially rented that entire, you know, grouping of assets and resources to do that job.

I mean, you hear that like in construction companies, but you don't normally hear about that in cities and municipalities. That's interesting. Yeah. Okay. So that's good stuff. So, yeah. So we have this opportunity for sharing. It helps the organization rightsize their fleet, helps them have less assets, which I think implicit, you know, again, we may have brand new listeners, you know, brand new fleet professionals and long-in-the-tooth ones as well. Right. Graybeards, as I like to call them. So pause me if I, if I, if we're jumping or making assumptions, right? So one of the things folks have to understand is inherently, and you talk about this really well, less assets means less cost. Like, I think that's obvious, but, but just in case it's not, right? Like, there's a ton of money to be saved simply by having that, that, that smaller fleet because of depreciation costs and insurance and other costs like that. So, so I agree with you, there's more and more opportunity there. Uh, and we encourage organizations. And you know what I'm finding, Tony, is it doesn't even— like, I agree with you that light duty is like the low-hanging fruit, but I'm sort of pleasantly surprised how often we're able to pull a piece of equipment. You know, like certain kinds of, um, you mentioned the backhoe or excavator. You know, there's certain standard size that multiple groups are going to need to use once in a while, and it's— no one is using that every day. Not I mean, obviously, if that's what your business is, of course you are. But generally speaking, you know what I'm, what I'm getting at there. So don't be— I guess my thought there is, if you're thinking about this, don't be closed-minded. Look at the data, look at when people are using, looking how much people are using, and be open to various kinds of equipment. Yeah, it's going to be harder as it gets more specific, that's for sure. But, but look at it.

You know, I'm glad you brought that up because when you think about yellow iron, you know, you think about a front-end wheeled loader or a backhoe loader unit. Think about— so I live in Kansas City area. So we have the winters, we have snow. So our snow removal operation, they need that loader to load the dump trucks with salt, you know, on snow removal days. However, they don't use it that often in the spring and summer because they have other activities going on. But in the summer and spring and fall, the parks needs that type of piece of equipment better. So, you know, yeah, sometimes it's just seasonal sharing of an asset.

Yeah. Perfect point. Perfect point. Right. And so why have one department and the department— this is the thing to the— my message to the departments out there, why would you want to bear the entire burden of the cost of that asset? Right. Like, you don't have to. Right. So you should be looking for opportunities to sort of hand your assets over to a pool, and then you pay for what you need and only for what you need, which is the great benefit of pools. Right. I mean, we've seen that as the most successful strategy or the foundational principle of the most successful strategy for folks trying to create pools is establishing that, that fact.

And Mark, I mean, you just hit on a huge thing— chargeback rates. You know, I mean, that's a whole different podcast. But, you know, if we really want to impact behavior and you develop chargeback rates and they're, they're paying for that asset when it's sitting there, you know, 50% of the time not being used, that will usually get their attention.

Right. And that's what's neat too about like a motor pool asset. On the, on the contrary is, hey, the fact that it got rented means it was needed. Which means your case for utilization is already made, right? Because we talk a lot about— and that's another podcast too, but we just to kind of refresh folks' memory, you know, miles is, is great if, if the mission of the unit is to move goods or people across distances. Most assets in a fleet, that's not actually what their intention is. You know, I mean, just think about police, right? They have to observe and respond. So that means they're sitting around a lot waiting to put that mileage on. So, well, what do most police departments look for? Well, they look at engine hours because that's a better use, or just hours, right? So you got to— we talk a lot about it, but I'll just refresh everyone's memory. Maybe my editors over here will even do me a solid when they release this and drop a link where we talk about finding utilization metrics that actually match the mission of the work being done. And so that's key for assets that you are assigning to departments or people. Motorpool, you don't have that burden. If it's, if it's rented inherently, it was needed because they're willing to essentially burn the cost on that asset, which they would otherwise not want to do. Right. They're not incentivized to do so.

Absolutely. And just think about it, number of trips taken, you know, and it can be one trip a day, it could be multiple trips a day. So that's really the metric that we like to look at when we look at motorpool utilization. How often is that vehicle being used and rented and, and, you know, providing that transportation?

And I just wanna hit this, right? Like in our experience, I, I don't wanna put words in your mouth, in my experience, but I'm pretty sure you'll agree when we do go look at, do a utilization analysis or an assessment for an organization that does have a, anywhere from let's say a medium level to a very sophisticated motor pool, we find that those motor pool assets are by far the best and most utilized and, and best cared for, for that matter.

Without a doubt.

Right. It's truly amazing. They have mileage and hours data that looks like, I guess I'll say, the retail market, right? They match the averages of the nation, whereas typically, especially in government fleets or in commercial fleets that are relatively local, you know, if you get 6,000 miles a year, it's a lot, right? There are exceptions for use cases, but generally speaking. So you see that, you know, a dramatic increase there, much, much more utilization. And since they have to be, you know, it's the kind of thing where it's like, you know, I'll admit I very rarely clean my room on Fridays and Saturdays. Sometimes once in a while we'll bring, you know, cleaning folks in and then I clean the room, you know. So what, so what happens? And don't tell my wife I admitted that on air. Hopefully she doesn't see that. But what, what happens there, right? The nature of sharing something I think, generally speaking, leads to better stewardship because someone's coming in behind you. And if that thing is beat up, you got to look them in the eye. And, and frankly, most motor pool operations, that's part of the operation, right? They're checking that thing all the time. So you get better cared for assets as well, which I think is fascinating. Because no one goes to school for fleet management, chances are you were never formally trained on how to successfully lead a fleet. That's where the Fleet Fleet Success Playbook comes in. The Fleet Success Playbook is your guide to building a safe, reliable, and efficient fleet that provides exceptional service. Learn all about the 4 pillars of fleet success: stakeholder satisfaction, intentional culture, resource efficiency, and risk management. Get nearly 100 years of combined advice on common challenges, practical solutions, actionable tips, and real examples from fleet industry experts who have been there and done that. Visit www.fleetsuccessplaybook.com to request your free copy today.

Well, and I think, Mark, if I can jump in there, you know, I think that's a huge and very important part that you just touched on because let's face it, for a motor pool to be used, you have to have good vehicles. You have to have the right type of vehicles that people need. The vehicles have to be reliable. They have to be clean. Generally speaking, you want the best vehicles in the fleet, in the motor pool, because you want people to use those vehicles. And I've got a great story. And we did a study, actually, Mark, you and I worked on it for a large university in the SEC. And one of the stories was, you know, we've got pretty good utilization on the motor pool, but we wanted to find out why the motor pool wasn't being more heavily utilized. And so we met with all the different agencies within the university. And we talked to the athletic department, and they said, well, you know, one of the reasons that we don't use the motor pools is because they don't have the types of vehicles that we need. And I'm like, well, what do you mean? You've got sedans and pickup trucks and vans and SUVs. And they go, no, no, you don't understand. He said, we are recruiting, you know, 4 and 5-star football players. So when we pick them up at the airport, we need to show up in a nice vehicle. The vehicle has to be new. It's got to be a representation of our football program. And then they said, and then, you know, when we have, uh, you know, staff and players that need to be transported to a doctor or hospital or, or something like that. We need a vehicle that's going to fit them. And I'm like, well, you guys have, you know, SUVs and stuff. He goes, no, no. He said, do you understand that the average size of our offensive line is 6'5", 322 pounds? So no, we need these big vehicles, and the motor pool doesn't have them. Yeah, they have you know, the Ford Explorer and they have this, but we need the big vehicles. And so once we communicated that to the motor pool, they're like, oh my goodness, sure, we could put that kind of vehicle in the motor pool. No problem. There was just that lack of communication. So I think that's a huge part. You have to have the vehicles that people are going to need.

Well, and that makes a great point because, look, if you're doing right-sizing anyway and if you're managing utilization the way you should, as a fleet manager and as an organization, you should be having conversations with people around their use case anyway, right? What is the mission? What is the work you need to accomplish with this asset? So you're doing that for the assets you're giving them to their department anyway, right? So by understanding that mission, then you can kind of begin to, you know, hey, how often are you doing this? When are you doing it? And you can start to plan what assets you need. And then from there, it's data. I mean, you know, we don't have Griffin on right now, But Griffin Scott or Christian Amaker or any of our FMAs, they would all say the same thing. Motor pools are the easiest to right-size because it's, it's pretty straightforward from a, from a data analyst perspective. Once you have them, you know if you need more, right, or not. And, and that sort of a thing. Min-max is pretty straightforward stuff. Just a matter of having some conversation and getting that, getting that piece going, really, and taking the leap.

Mark, you started talking about min-maxes, and I think it's also important to realize that You know, when you size your motor pool, you're not sizing it at 100% peak demand. You know, I like to use the analogy that you don't size a motor pool, you know, the same way you don't size a church for Easter Sunday service when that's when everyone goes. You want to size the motor pool to meet, you know, 80 to 85% of your demand typically. But you want to have a contracting avenue that allows you, if you do hit that peak demand and you've overcommitted your motor pool, that you have a way to go out into the commercial market and rent from, you know, any one of the number of commercial rental companies and you backfill your motor pool fleet with those vehicles. So it's transparent to the user. They ordered a vehicle, it hits your reservation inbox and you say, oh, that was the last SUV, just went out. So you go in and grab another one from a commercial rental part. And I think that's the way that you can make sure that you always have vehicles available.

Yeah, that's a great call and it's a great practice because that's how you optimize for costs, frankly.

Right? Right.

If you, if you own for max, you're, you're shooting yourself in the foot. But if you're not hitting the 80%, then you're, you, you actually will lose trust in the pool because people will feel like they're coming and they can't rely on the vehicles there. So you identify your peak periods for the different asset types and like you said, develop an SLA, make sure you can get those units.

You know, the motor pool, your size and composition, your motor pools, it has to be dynamic. It's going to grow and shrink based on seasonality. It's going to based on whatever's happening in your organization, right? Absolutely. And so it really is important to understand when your peaks and demands are so you can schedule vehicle replacements and acquisitions and maintenance and repair and, you know, acquiring additional vehicles. So, you know, you can't really think about, I'm going to size it today and that's the size of my motor pool for the next 24 months.

Right. And the mix, right, to your point as well, the mix is going to make a big difference. And frankly, one of the things we've tried to educate folks on, which I think is a great sort of ace in the seat is using dynamic replacement planning, right? And dynamic vehicle ordering. So, you know, you can often, like you said, maybe having a, you know, a deal with a local rental company. But another option, I mean, something I used to use at Fordham is, you know, we knew we had this peak period at the end of May or early June into mid-June when commencement was happening, when all the alumni events were happening. So we would place our orders so that our 15-passenger vans and our golf carts that we knew we needed for those events, would get in, you know, the mid-April, end of April. We get them all upfitted and all that jazz, we get them in service by the middle of May, keep them, and, and then in July start handing back the ones that were getting replaced by those assets. So we had a temporary, maybe a month to 6 weeks of an inflated fleet intentionally, and then, and then kind of give away all the old ones the following year. There's, there's so much opportunity if you just kind of keep your your thumb on it and you do the math and the amount of money you save. You know, I remember when we used to rent all those additional assets for those events and yeah, just like the money was, was mind-boggling for leadership. It's a great way to get a pat on your back if you're interested.

Exactly. Well, you know, you also mentioned something about, um, you know, you, you really as an organization need to have policies and procedures in place that, that almost require, you know, if you don't have an assigned vehicle to you individually, to your crew, to your department, and if you need transportation you need to make it a priority that that individual uses the motor pool. And if they choose not to for whatever reason, maybe they have to drop off their laundry or they need to pick up a kid from daycare or something and they want to use their personal vehicle. Sometimes that's okay, but we want to have a tiered level of reimbursement then usually. So if we've always said if there's a motor pool vehicle available and you choose not to do that and you want to use your personal vehicle, We'll still reimburse you, you know, you're for driving your personal vehicle, but it's going to be at half the IRS rate, for example.

Right. And you're much nicer to me. I wouldn't reimburse anything, but, but, but that's because I have the pains. You know, I remember those pains of the motor pool. But yeah, exactly. Something that incentivizes and says to people, hey, we went through the trouble of giving you the assets, you know, now you got to use them. Right. So that's, that's a great point. Hey, I want to go back before because I do want to keep— I want to keep going into best practices and I want to start with policy and procedures right where you're going. But I do want to call out, because I know we got the naysayers out there that say, well, you know, you can't optimize for this and that. And look, certainly there's going to be specialty equipment that is just so difficult to get your hands on that we get it. You're going to go get it and you're going to drop it in the pool, and maybe it's only going to be used a few times a year, but you got to have it there because of the nature of your operation. It's, it's like we talk about with fire trucks or you know, or wreckers or something like that. It's an insurance vehicle and those might need to exist in the pool because maybe you have 3 or 5 different departments that use that insurance vehicle. And so you just— but you can't go out and get one, right? Like, we get that. So again, we're giving you guys sort of, you know, best approaches, commonalities. But we know there are exceptions to the rules. That doesn't mean you can't manage to those exceptions. But, but anyway, sorry for the divergence. I want to come back to because that was a great point. Let's, let's kind of follow down that line. What are some other, like, key policies and policies really that you've kind of uncovered are really best practices if you're going to run the motor pool and have it be as efficient as you can have it?

Not only having some type of requirement that that is your primary source of transportation if you're not— don't have an assigned vehicle. I think it has to be exemplified by the leadership. I mean, the leaders within the departments, whether department heads, a city manager, a county executive, those people also need to use the motor pool. They need to set the example. Example, because if they're not doing it, then no one's going to do it. I, I think the other things are, you know, a loaner pool is great in concept, but you really need to have a reservation system. You need a, a some way that people can go online and reserve a vehicle to make sure that that vehicle is available when they show up. You need to have reasonable rental rates, whether it be half-day rates, full-day rates, hourly rates. You need to have fees for if those people bring the vehicle back late, if they bring it back dirty. You need to have policies in place that say whether or not they have to bring it back full of fuel or not, you know, and is there a charge if we have to go clean the vehicle and wash the vehicle? I mean, we're going to wash it anyway, but if we have to clean it, if we have to fuel it, is there going to be an extra charge with it? So I think you really have to set this up like a commercial rental car operation, even if it's in a city, county, state government, and treat it as such. And then you need the policies and the teeth behind it. So if people don't follow those rules, that there's some type of consequence. Points.

Yeah, those are great points. Um, you know, a couple of them jump out to me that I think we've seen or helped implement over the years is something we've kind of alluded to earlier on. But, you know, you do need a policy in place around what justifies a non-pool asset, right? Like, how— what's that utilization requirement, uh, that says, yes, we're going to give this department or this person their own asset, right? And we encourage people, again, don't only think about mileage, kind of you alluded to earlier, if they're not using it some— something like 4 out of 5 days of the week, you know, at least 3 and a half, probably it's a good candidate for a pool and it can still be shared. But, you know, you really want to kind of eyeball those, those kinds of assets. That's one that kind of jumps out to me. Couldn't agree with you more about reservation. I do encourage folks to embrace being that rental, get those vehicles clean, you know, have policies around check-in and checkouts, you know, develop a way to do recurring reservations so that when you have that person who needs it every, you know, every Monday, Wednesday, Friday from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m., they can get in there, get it reserved and not see it as a burden, you know, to kind of have that asset. You know, I think that's another great example. You talked about the reimbursement one. I think another one is You know, just sort of general use of where and, you know, the other department vehicles can go. Like, so what I mean by that is, you know, just because you have an assigned truck in your department, we may not want that to be the asset you go to your conference with that you're driving 2 states away with, right? Like, maybe that should stay behind to get that work done and you got to use a motor pool asset is another example of, you know, the kinds of you know, policies that we've seen.

So that's a great point. And, you know, the one of the other things that I like about a motor pool operation is that, that the organization is maintaining that asset. You know, if someone's driving— yeah, if someone's driving their personal vehicle, you— unless you have a policy that requires a certain standard of care, and then you, you know, require them to provide proof of PM services, and, you know, you're going to go check tire tread depth, and you're going to make sure that that vehicle's safe— that's a liability or risk management issue. So, you by, by pushing them or directing them into using your motor pool where you're confident that those vehicles are being maintained on a regular schedule. I think that's just— that's a no-brainer.

Yeah, that's more reason why I don't want to reimburse. I want to have the motor pool, you know, because, you know, again, we talked about this a lot. If you're gonna— if you're gonna— and I know this is like a slight tangent, but I'll bring it back— if you're going to embark on a personally, you know, a reimbursement program for personal vehicles, there's a lot to do there too, right? Like, you got to make sure you're collecting their insurance. You got to make sure that they've told the insurance company they're using it for business. You know, to your point, you got to somehow get them to sign something that says they're maintaining it properly because the truth is you're not going to check their records constantly or you got to check their records constantly to make sure this— I mean, there's just such a lift. And I'm not saying it's a bad thing or that folks shouldn't use it, but it's just such a lift. You know, if you're going to have a motor pool in place, you know, let's, you know, let's go there. I want to jump back real quick to the loaner program. Listen, we're not saying don't do a loaner program, right? Have the motor pool and have the loaner. But I would say one of the mistakes that we see people make with loaner programs is they don't charge for the loaner, right? So you got to either make them do a motor pool reservation or if you're going to hand it out, it's got to somehow make it into that M&R cost, right? But you're providing a service. You're providing a really a— what's the word I'm looking for? A convenience. you know, that they otherwise wouldn't have. So, uh, you know, I'd really, uh, kind of, kind of think about that. Um, what are some other things, like, you know, thinking about like the pools you've seen that are run really well and really great, what are like, what are some things that are sort of, uh, representative of that? Like, how, you know, like what's the word I'm looking for? Hopefully you know what I'm trying to say. Like, when you, when you see a great run motor pool, what are some characteristics of that motor pool? Or some things, things that they do that maybe every motor pool doesn't do that really sets them apart?

You know, one of the state-run motor pools that I worked with, the one thing that they did is they would always have something new and unique. So, you know, when, when a model change came out or when one of the OEMs offered a new make and model of a vehicle, they would always get a couple of those vehicles and put them in the pool because people are excited about trying something new. They wanted to drive the new Mustang when it came out. They wanted to drive the new SUVs. And again, back more years than I want to admit, when I was working with that state agency, you know, 25 years ago, they were getting hybrid vehicles and people were like, what is this? How does this work? And so everyone wanted to drive it. They would make up excuses to go drive the motor pool vehicle. So I think it has to be vehicles that, that meet your need. They have to, they have to be exciting. They have to encourage people to want to use them. They have to be clean. They have to be available. The process has to be easy. It has to be somewhat convenient for the user. I mean, they can't drive, you know, 45 minutes across town just to get in a motor pool vehicle. So, you know, you can have a central motor pool, but then you can have satellite motor pools, you know, throughout the campus, throughout the city, throughout the county. So there's more ways than just having a single motor pool to operate.

Yeah, I want to, I want to emphasize that, right? Because we see all the time people with multiple location motor pools, and we get that, and that's obviously a good thing. But you're, you know, we're seeing more and more that best-in-breed motor pools have what I'll, I guess, multiple local locations, right? Like you said, you know, if it's, let's say, a university, multiple spots on campus, multiple spots across town, not just in the next town over because you're, you're a big state or whatever it may be. I think, I think that's a great idea. You know, your story reminded me of the first time I ever got in a hybrid and I remember I kept trying to turn it on because it was like I didn't hear anything, and I didn't realize it was on until I had some young kid laugh at me. It's on, it's on. I'm like, no, it's not on. I took delivery, Mark. I want to actually— I think it was Tony Bellantono who works, but I took delivery, Mark. It's on, it's on, trust me. Like, it's not on, man. Sure enough, I put in reverse and we start going. Um, but yeah, no, I think, I think that's a good point.

Well, and I, you know, I just want to kind of reiterate, Mark, and I— you kind of said this at the beginning, but But, you know, when we're talking about motor pool, we're not talking about every single asset in the fleet is going to be in the motor pool. You know, we did a fleet right-sizing study last year, and I knew we were going to talk about that. So I looked up the numbers. There are about 800 vehicles and pieces of equipment in the fleet. We did the right-sizing study. We identified 85 vehicles that were potentially underutilized. So, you know, they were getting the 2,000 miles driven, vehicle miles traveled a year. They were being used once or twice a week. And this department over here was doing the same thing. So what we did is we identified that outright 33 vehicles could go away. So that was a no-brainer. But then we moved 52 vehicles to a brand new motor pool operation. So by doing that, you know, we didn't eliminate all 85 vehicles. We didn't take the transportation away. We put them in a shared use motor pool. And by doing that, we were able to save or avoid almost $2 million, $1.9 million in CapEx avoidance costs because they weren't going to have to replace those 33 3 vehicles anymore. And then there was about $200,000 worth of maintenance, repair, and fuel savings that we were able to identify that was going to go away as well. So, you know, we're not talking about moving all the vehicles in the fleet to the motor pool. We're talking about just those, those, that low-hanging fruit that, you know, was probably 5 to 10% of your fleet, more than likely.

Yeah. And what I like, what you just pointed out too, is it's math, folks. It's math. It's not guesswork. It's not, oh, I hope I'm right. Don't get me wrong, it's tweaking and it's adjusting for sure over time, because like we said, it changes. But you can figure out what you need math. And by the way, you can also figure out where you need by math. So we didn't just put all those vehicles in one spot in our recommendation. We said, hey, put a few here, put these here, and these types in these different locations. So it's doable. It really is doable. And there's a lot of money to be saved, and people are very happy.

Well, and you know, Mark, how we've always said, you know, being a fleet manager is very difficult because really everyone that owns a vehicle is quote unquote a fleet manager, right?

So yeah, at least they think that.

Yeah, they exactly, they think they are. So, you know, we've been having this conversation and in my mind I'm thinking, oh my gosh, I have my own motor pool here. So I have 3 kids that still live at home.

This is great.

I have 3 kids.

I want to hear this. Go ahead, go So I have 3 kids that live at home, right?

They're all driving age. And so we have 2 vehicles between the 3 kids, right?

Okay.

So, okay, if someone has multiple rights, if someone has something that they have to do, they have to say, hey, I need the car this night, or I'm going somewhere and I need it this weekend. So they have to unofficially reserve the vehicle, right? And then when 2 of them, you know, 2 of them go to work and the third one needs to go do something, guess what? The backup vehicles are my wife's and my vehicle, right? So instead of us going to rent one, they're using one of our vehicles. So we actually have our own little motor pool here.

Yeah. And you're the rental agency.

I'm the rental agency. And believe me, I charge them when that vehicle doesn't come back clean.

That's what I want to hear about. I want to know about the rates, man. What are the rates? Are we coming out of allowance or what's going on?

Absolutely. Punishment.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, let's talk super quick. I know we're getting close here, but let's hit a few more kind of like best practices that we've seen. You know, you do, you do want to have people require that the vehicle is clean. You do want to have in place the— I would suggest you have someone who's a dedicated, let's say, detailer or whatever else. I think it is okay. Again, not that you want everything to be stick, but it is okay to hit people with fines and fees if they, if they bring it back, you know, excessively dirty. You do got to figure out, am I fueling and charging you later? Do I expect you to bring it back fueled? That's more of an operational decision, less than a one way is right, then the other way is wrong, in my opinion. But there, there are some other things too. And you mentioned rental companies, right? Like, this is what I'll say to people who are maybe thinking about embarking on this. You know, Hertz and Enterprise and National and all these other folks, these are like multi-billion or whatever they are. These are massive multinational organizations, probably trillions, right? They didn't get there by accident. Look at what they do. Do. Look at their practices. They might be a good start, right? You know, and think about that not only from, uh, you know, how rental goes in, because, because everyone's had a bad experience at a rental agency. I'm not saying that they're perfect, um, but there's a reason that, that they're as successful as they are and that they make the money they do. Um, and think about that. Like, for example, what, what am I alluding to? One of many things that I'm alluding to is I find that one mistake many pools make is they, they come up with overly complex chargeback, you know, and they just make it difficult. Um, and it's, well, you know, you get— you pay this much for, uh, the first hour and then this much for 3 hours and you get this many miles and then any mile over this, and then nobody has any freaking clue what it is they're gonna have to pay before they go and rent the vehicle, which makes them not want to rent the vehicle. Um, you know, there's a reason that Enterprise and Hertz don't charge per miles anymore. They used to, remember? When I was a kid, they did. When I was a young adult, they It's all gone now. Why? Because they realized that wasn't actually impacting cost all that much, and it just made things much more difficult, you know, to do. So I personally think that the best motor pools have straightforward, fair chargeback systems that keep that as simple as they can be. And they usually figure out flat rates based on time as opposed to, you know, very complicated per-mileage things. Again, not trying to upset anybody. I know there's a lot of colleagues out there who use miles and, and for various reasons, but I'm just speaking kind of generally. I think that the best-in-class, uh, motor pool programs kind of take that approach.

I don't know if you have a different thought, but I, I would agree 100%. And, and Mark, I think it goes without saying, but you know, we talked about policies and requirements and stuff. You know, the thing about the motor pool is you do have to verify that that driver is an eligible driver when they come to pick up the keys or when they come to get the vehicle. So So you have to have a system in place that would— that will do that. I mean, the simplest is you— when they show up to the motor pool, they show your driver's license, you take a picture of it and you put it on file. Yeah, there's other ways to do it as well, but, you know, at least they need to make sure that we have eligible drivers.

It's a great point. And depending on the organization, and some pools have to take much, much bigger steps than that, right? They got to make sure— I remember I used to have to make sure drivers, uh, had taken a defensive driving course and prove it and keep it on file and make sure it didn't expire. And maybe you need to track a physical or HR has to tell you that they have the physical or something like that. So there's a lot going on. But certainly you need to think through what, you know, what are my risk mitigation? Get with your risk manager, make sure you've thought through what are the risk mitigation steps I need to take. You know, in the, in the, in the early 2000s, you had schools removing the third row of their vans or the last row of their vans out You know, those sorts of things. So you just kind of want to, you know, you make sure you've talked that through, maybe even some training programs and online training programs. So there's a lot to be there. Some folks have to do, as you mentioned, about, you know, hiring a driver or an operator for a crane. There are many organizations that in addition to their motor pool, they essentially order chartered services. Fordham did that as well. You know, you got to think that through. How is that going to work? So it can get more and more and more and more and more complex. One thing we didn't touch too much on is key boxes and how you distribute keys. I think that's also really an operational thing. I think some folks need the key boxes and some don't. Kind of depends on nature of the location that you're going to be at. But I will say I'm really excited to see more and more folks moving to RFID. I think that's the sort of the ultimate future for that piece. But man, I feel like I could go on and on forever, but I know, I know the rules. I know if I do go on forever, I'm going to lose people. So with that, I'm going to ask you, any other sort of closing thoughts or, you know, kind of anything you think we missed or didn't touch on?

No, I would just tell fleet managers that don't have a motor pool, don't be afraid of it. Give it a shot. You can start small, start with 6 vehicles, you know, and see how it goes. And then, you know, you can always grow the motor pool if you're successful.

Yeah. And as it grows, you know, you'll be able to justify additional personnel and have people who— that's what they do, manage the pool and so forth. And so forth and so on. Yeah, great call. All right, with that, Tony, this was an absolute pleasure. I want to have you back on. I want to talk more about utilization. I want to connect the dots with Motherpool and other rightsizing efforts and that sort of a thing. Would you come back and join me here in the next few weeks?

Always, Mark, always.

All right, man, have a great weekend. And with that, uh, we are RTA, the Fleet Success Company. Visit us at www.rtafleet.com or fleetconsulting.com if you're interested in any of our consulting services. Leave us a message, send us an email at rtafleet.com. Let us know if you have any questions or future topics you want to talk about. And with that, Tony, take it easy.

Great.

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