Three essential steps for managing grey fleet travel.

1. Set the policy
Develop a policy on driving for work, which includes statements on driving your own vehicle for work

In compliance with health and safety legislation and the HSE’s Driving at work guidance, the policy should include statements relating to the vehicle, the driver and the journey.

The vehicle
- the employee is responsible for ensuring their own vehicle complies with Road Traffic Law, is in a safe and roadworthy condition and fit for purpose if used for business purposes
- the employee is responsible for keeping up-to-date MOT, insurance cover and servicing documentation, and for producing these for regular checks by management
- the employer requires minimum vehicle standards to be met by employeeowned cars used for business, which cover NCAP ratings, emissions levels, required safety features and essential breakdown cover.

The driver
- the employee is required to evidence appropriate driving standards
- the employee is responsible for holding a current driving licence, with upto-date information on endorsements, and for producing this for regular checks by management.

The journey
- each department is responsible for taking steps to assure itself that the vehicle and driver are fit for purpose for each business journey undertaken.

2. Use the policy to tackle key issues
The policy on driving for work should cover the relevant issues relating to financial and environmental responsibilities, as well as health and safety

• Necessity for travel
In order to reduce the risk to safety, as well as the environmental and financial impacts, the policy should seek to eliminate all unnecessary business journeys. It should state that the following assessments must be undertaken
before each journey regarding the necessity for travel:
- whether the need for the journey, or task, can be carried out equally well using video or audio-conferencing facilities, telephone or e-mail
- whether the meeting or need for the journey can be postponed until a later date, or brought forward and then be combined with an additional requirement to travel, to reduce overall travel costs
- whether the journey has been approved in advance by the line manager or appropriate authority.

• Decision making on travel
To further minimise the impacts of grey fleet travel, the policy should highlight the requirements for employees to use the most economic and efficient method of travel, taking into account the cost of travel, environmental impact and timing factors. This may include setting required methods of transport for certain journeys, such as:
- public transport should be used for all journeys between city centres
- public transport, hire, pool or lease cars should be used for all journeys over a specified distance.

• Restrictions on grey fleet journeys
Planning safer, more efficient and economic journeys may also mean restricting the use of grey fleet to journeys below a certain distance. Getting employees into newer lease or hire cars, with their added safety features, or, better still, into public transport, will help reduce risk, emissions and spend.

3. Implement and review the policy
The policy needs to be implemented, managed and reviewed

• Implement the policy
Ensure that employees know about the policy and that they understand what is expected of them:
- at employee-level, this includes responsibility for journey planning, safe driving and ensuring fitness for purpose of grey fleet vehicles 
- at line manager level, this includes responsibility for challenging travel choices of employees and assessing risk related to specific journeys (driver and vehicle).

A key test will be whether employees and managers know what they should
be doing in relation to journey planning and grey fleet travel.

• Make the policy manageable and easy to follow
Employees need to understand how to follow the policy and organisations need to make it easy for them to make the right travel choices, through:
- practical guidance on journey planning and ensuring the fitness for purpose of grey fleet vehicles will help people to follow the policy
- provision of audio and video-conferencing facilities and training of employees to use them can support elimination of unnecessary journeys
- enabling easy access to approved deals for booking public transport and spot hire cars will make these acceptable alternatives to grey fleet.

• Review the policy regularly
The policy needs to be reviewed on a regular basis (preferably at least annually), to ensure that it is kept up-to-date and improved where possible.  This should particularly focus on ensuring that appropriate management systems are in place and that all risks are being controlled.

Critical success factors – making the policy work

Communication
Communicating the key messages of the policy will be crucial for ensuring that employees and managers are aware of their responsibilities and understand how they can meet these in the most efficient way. Communication may take place through:
• Policy documents
• Practical guidance packs
• Driver handbooks
• Decision trees
• Newsletter articles
• Induction packs
• Briefing sessions
• Intranet webpage

It may be effective to set up an intranet site, as a one-stop-shop for information on driving for work and journey planning. This could include policy documents and guidance, as well as links to the relevant booking sites for audio and video-conferencing, public transport and vehicle spot hire.

Senior-level support
Engaging senior management support for any new policies or arrangements is crucial for achieving effective change:
- appoint a senior-level sponsor for grey fleet, who will have ownership for this area and any changes within it
- set key performance indicators or targets on business mileage, and in particular grey fleet mileage, so that senior managers are regularly measured on their performance in reducing mileage within their teams
- increase emphasis on line management advance authorisation and active demand management to help control mileage levels (i.e. is this journey really necessary, and, if so, is this the best method of travel?).

Gathering information
Data should be gathered on all methods of transport, including public transport, badged, leased and spot hired vehicles, and grey fleet, as well as audio- and video-conferencing. This will help to monitor mileage and risk levels and identify any patterns, such as increasing business mileage. Where grey fleet mileage is cut, it will also allow measurement of the reduction in mileage and spend net of any increase in usage of other methods of travel.

Standard data requirements that should be considered for grey fleet (and
other travel) are:
- total business mileage per journey
- total cost per journey (and mileage rate for grey fleet)
- journey information: journey date; journey reason; starting point and destination postcodes
- driver information: home postcode; driver licence number; licence endorsements
- vehicle information: engine size; vehicle registration; age; insurance number and date of last MOT

In order to ensure health and safety requirements are met, the following information may also be needed:
- record of last documentation or vehicle checks
- incident reporting: accidents and damage-only incidents when driving for work

Establish control measures
Control measures for grey fleet travel can also be used to reduce business journeys and thereby minimise risk and financial and environmental impacts.
These include:
- Specifying appropriate vehicles for grey fleet journeys, with minimum standards based on environmental and health and safety criteria: for example, minimum NCAP rating or maximum carbon emissions
- Carrying out documentation checks on driving licences, insurance cover and MOT certificates before allowing employees to drive their own vehicle  for work, and then repeating these at regular intervals to ensure standards
- Setting restrictions on acceptable journey distance in grey fleet vehicles, so that longer journeys are transferred to safer methods of travel
- Using travel and subsistence systems to hold back payment of mileage claims where appropriate data has not been provided (vehicle, driver, journey), where acceptable journey distance has been exceeded or where required documentation checks have not taken place.