BRITISH businesses are being urged to revolutionise the role of the fleet manager to help achieve an integrated transport system for the country. Experts say the traditional role of the fleet manager as the controller of company cars must be expanded to embrace all company transport and communication issues to ensure their employers operate at peak efficiency.

In a warning that 'old-style' fleet managers whose work solely relates to company cars must gear up for the 21st century, Association of Car Fleet Operators chairman Tony Leigh said: 'Fleet managers must get out of the mindset that they only deal with company cars.'

With transport issues and the company car near the top of the Government's political agenda, companies are being urged to adopt travel plans which highlight cycling, walking and the use of public transport, thereby ending total reliance on cars in an effort to ease congestion and reduce pollution.

And Leigh, speaking at ACFO's first Fleet Business Day, said: 'Fleet managers must think about how the entire business functions. They must become logistics managers or integrated transport managers looking at all transport and communications issues.'