McDonald Highway Services Ltd is a leading civil engineering company operating in the South of England. Established in 2001, it completes engineering projects and road maintenance for major contractors and local authorities. Its extensive fleet of vehicles includes trucks, plant, transit vans and cars.
McDonald Highways chose the VL-Fleet tracking solution from VeriLocation to track the 18 cars and vans owned by the company and the 22 that it hires. This gives it greater control of the fleet, specifically to:
- Provide systematic completion of VOSA weekly worksheets
- Accurately assess fuel consumption
- Save time on fleet management
- Improve vehicle security and speed up recovery in the event of a theft
Brian Stuart, Office Manager at McDonald Highways explains: "The main reason we decided to look into tracking devices was the issue of VOSA weekly worksheets. We discovered that some drivers were not completing their VOSA reports as accurately as they should, which could put the company at risk. So whichever tracking system we chose, it needed to solve this problem."
Honest approach
Brian contacted several tracking companies which resulted in a shortlist of five. He compared the costs and capabilities of each company in detail and VeriLocation came out on top. Brian says: "VeriLocation weren't the cheapest but they certainly weren't the most expensive. It was a combination of all the factors considered as well as their straight-talking approach. They were honest about what the system could and couldn't do, and they were prepared to develop report templates for us that were approved by VOSA. This was absolutely vital."
"We've been using the VL-Fleet system for about a year now," continues Brian, "and although it's difficult to quantify the benefits, we know that we're more in control - hugely so."
Time saving
Brian adds: "We're very keen on exploiting VL-Fleet to its full potential. It's a doddle to use and everyone here can use it. It saves us a huge amount of time. The overriding benefit is the ability to complete VOSA reports automatically by using the information gathered by the system. Each driver has a tag so he can drive any vehicle at any time and his work sheet is accurate regardless of the number of times he changes vehicles. It also helps with routine maintenance, MOT renewals and service planning. It’s easy to identify opportunities for vehicles to be serviced without too much disruption."
Fuel Economy
In addition, McDonald Highways finds VL-Fleet helpful for monitoring fuel consumption. Non-business mileage or excessive idling can be identified, and if a driver is suspected of going home frequently during working hours then the geofence feature can be used to check the suspicion. If this is the case then the situation can be addressed swiftly.
Security
Brian concludes that VL-Fleet is an extremely valuable tool, providing another example of its benefits. He adds: "Each Monday morning, I log on to complete a general check on where all the vehicles are. One morning, I discovered that one of our vans had been stolen over the weekend and was a long way off our patch. I was able to call the police and give them the exact location of the vehicle. Two people were arrested and the van was returned to us the next day."
"We have also had incidents when other contractors have been involved in an accident and falsely claimed to be from McDonald Highways. With VL-Fleet we can clearly show where our vehicles were at the time."