Herd Group Highlights the Hidden Cost of Vehicle Off Road Time

Vehicle off road time (VOR) disrupts service obligation and adds a huge hidden cost to a business. Despite this, many businesses fail to measure their van fleet’s VOR time in terms of £s, focusing solely on repair costs, rather than factoring in the ‘lost revenue’ of not having a vehicle available. It goes without saying repair costs can often be significant, but delays in authorisation or vehicle repair bookings being poorly managed can be even greater, costing businesses thousands in lost revenue.

In its most recent report, automotive research company Trend Tracker found that as of 2022, there were around 4.4 million registered light commercial vehicles in Great Britain.

Some 89.7 per cent of these are commercial vehicle fleets being used for business, with many companies facing challenges with damage repairs and service management. Service, maintenance and repairs (SMR) can represent a significant outlay and create bottlenecks.
 

Turnpower, a property maintenance company, offers fully-integrated and professional property maintenance services throughout London and the Home Counties, so optimising vehicle availability is critical.

Many property maintenance companies like Turnpower put the cost of VOR in the region of £1,000 to £1,500 per day. This takes into account not just the downtime of the vehicle itself but also the cost of lost business.

Herd Group currently supplies Turnpower with a fleet of 63 light commercial vehicles on long term rental, a mixture of short wheelbase and car-derived vans. The entire fleet is supported by Herd Connect, Herd’s ‘Brilliant’ Fleet Management outsourcing solution.

Maria Smith, fleet administrator at Turnpower, said:

“Being a fleet manager means you must be able to balance a number of operational demands whilst managing a fleet to be as cost effective as possible.

“Herd Connect makes SMR quicker and more cost-effective. It’s like having a whole fleet team on hand to help. We have unlimited access to their team of experts who can help us manage every aspect of our fleet and help deliver long-term savings.

We have a small pool of our own vehicles which we use as back-up vehicles. These are also managed by Herd Connect, so we benefit from all our fleet being looked after by one team that ensure MOTs and services are up-to-date to help keep vehicles compliant and minimise vehicle off road days.”

Herd works closely with Turnpower to ensure vehicle repairs are managed and authorised swiftly, to minimise any unnecessary VOR times.

“Vehicles out of action due to unplanned maintenance events can have a significant impact on VOR times and can compromise a business’s service delivery capability,”

confirms Danielle Davison, Herd’s group fleet director.
 

“At Herd Connect, we work closely with the customer to identify specific rulesets to ensure vehicle off-road times are kept to an absolute minimum. Our qualified maintenance technicians scrutinise and authorise any required work quickly and efficiently – the focus being on returning the vehicle to the road as quickly as possible. With Herd operating as an extension to Turnpower’s fleet team, we take time to understand individual fleet requirements and customise our solutions to provide optimised support. Our focus is on keeping our customers’ vehicles on the road, making them money.”

Herd Connect offers a comprehensive fleet management solution including service & maintenance management, fleet administration, fleet compliance and a customer dashboard that offers visibility over the status of your fleet. With a network of over 6,000 franchised and independent garages across the UK, Herd Connect can provide cost and time savings on service, maintenance and repairs.