Company name: Integral
Key contact: Craig Watson, Fleet Manager
Fleet profile: 1,400 company cars and light commercial vehicles
Business: Maintenance service provider for commercial and public sector buildings – including financial institutions, retail outlets, property specialists, corporate premises, government departments, education and health services and social housing landlords
Locations: Headquarters in Bristol with 15 locations across the UK

An innovative fuel management programme is an environmental and financial success story for Integral, Britain’s largest and fastest growing national provider of comprehensive maintenance services for commercial and public sector buildings.

The corporate focus on fuel management has resulted in the company using 2,800 litres less fuel a week in 2008 compared with 2005, despite the size of the fleet increasing by more than a third.

Identifying the problem
In 2006 Integral operated a national fleet of around 1,000 company cars and light commercial vehicles, but had no centralised fleet department. As the company was expanding rapidly, they appointed a fleet professional, Craig Watson, to oversee the entire operation. Mr Watson introduced a user-choice company car policy that incentivised the take-up of low emission models through a built-in carbon offset scheme. He then appointed the Energy Saving Trust to undertake a Green Fleet Review. One of the key recommendations from this was to improve fuel management.

Although Integral used fuel cards, they were registered to the vehicle, not the driver. Other problems were that fuel management information had limited mileage data, drivers were not buying fuel at the cheapest outlets and vehicle MPG was not analysed to identify high fuel-use drivers.

Text alert initiative
A massive fuel data gathering exercise was instigated to generate benchmark
information. This identified:
• Fuel spend by individual drivers
• Where fuel was being purchased
• Drivers that were buying the most fuel

Additionally, fuel card registration was changed from vehicle to individual drivers. The key change was to trial mobile phone text alerts to drivers. After staff had purchased fuel they were sent a text telling them if they had filled up at an ‘expensive’ outlet and encouraging them to use a ‘cheaper’ location next time.

During the two-month trial of 250 company car and van users based at the firm’s Birmingham office, an average 1,000 fewer litres of fuel were bought each week.

Mr Watson pointed out: “Drivers became aware that they were being monitored and they started to become more responsible.” In January 2008 the text alert initiative went national with drivers potentially receiving four different texts if they erred from the company’s now established fuel policy.

Texts were sent if employees:
• Filled up anywhere other than a supermarket or Shell outlet
• Failed to provide their vehicle mileage when paying with their fuel card
• Bought super unleaded petrol with their Arval or Shell fuel card
• Filled up at a motorway service station

A successful policy
Mr Watson confirmed that initially some staff received a lot of texts. “Although the policy had been communicated to drivers, when they started to receive loads of text messages after filling up they soon conformed. With fuel cards now being linked to individual named drivers and not vehicles, there could be no dispute over who was responsible for any purchase.”

“ Our focus is on saving money while ensuring that the fleet runs efficiently and effectively
to support the operation of the business. We have already achieved significant cost savings and with the Energy Saving Trust’s help we can achieve even more.” Craig Watson, Fleet Manager, Integral.

Drivers have become more watchful in their fuel purchasing habits. Branch managers are sent comprehensive monthly fuel management reports highlighting which staff have bought the most fuel, who bought the most expensive fuel and other exceptions to company policy.

'Managers receive easy-to-understand fuel purchasing trend reports that they can use to ensure our fuel policy is being followed. Although there is no formal incentive scheme, drivers became competitive between themselves because they didn’t want to be highlighted by their branch manager for being on any ‘list’”.

Throughout 2008 the number of texts sent to drivers dropped as conformity spread. On average the costs of sending texts per month is £150, but the monthly fuel saving amounts to more than £5,000.

“Drivers didn’t understand that Integral was buying millions of litres of fuel a year and 1p a litre saved soon mounts up over 12 months,” said Mr Watson.

“We asked employees to take responsibility and have delivered financial savings to the business.”

Now a second text message alert scheme is being piloted at the Birmingham office with drivers told how much fuel they bought, how much it cost and their actual MPG versus the manufacturers’ average figure for their vehicle. This involves crosschecking fuel card data with Integral’s driver id and vehicle database. Mr Watson said: “The new initiative is further maintaining the focus on MPG and in 2009 we will decide whether to roll the programme out nationally.”

Looking to the future
Another initiative has seen an initial eight company car and eight non-company car drivers sign-up to the Energy Saving Trust’s new smarter driving training course, which is designed to encourage people to drive more efficiently. Finally, Integral has signed up to the Energy Saving Trust’s Motorvate programme, which recognises and rewards achievements in reducing fleet emissions through annual auditing as well as giving them the benefit of ongoing consultancy support.

Mr Watson said: “Our focus is on saving money while ensuring that the fleet runs efficiently and effectively to support the operation of the business. We have already achieved significant cost savings and with the Energy Saving Trust’s help we can achieve even more.”