THE UK'S major leasing companies can now compare key fleet data such as residual values and rental rates, thanks to a new online service created by the British Vehicle Rental and Leasing Association (BVRLA).

The association's Industry Residual Value Survey (IRVS) is described as an independent, web-based survey of residual value forecasts drawn from its own leasing company members.

Users can also access maintenance budgets, excess mileage charges and rentals for almost every new vehicle available for sale in the UK. BVRLA executives are delighted with the service's success so far and believe the number of subscribers using the system will have doubled by the end of the year.

Leasing companies subscribing to the service contribute their own data which representatives can compare against competitor information, as well as that from companies like CAP or Glass's Guide, on the password-protected site. BVRLA director general John Lewis said: 'It's been quite extraordinary. We knew we had to move the original CD- based system to a more interactive arrangement but the success has been overwhelming.

'Our technical partner, Deltapoint, has been very active not only in producing an outstanding system but in jointly promoting it with us.

And further developments are already happening. The vehicle manufacturer module is already selling well and I fully expect to see in excess of 12 of the larger manufacturers taking the data before the end of the year.'

Lewis said that for manufacturers, IRVS provided a useful 'sanity check' as instead of a using paper-based system, representatives could log on and see the latest information at the click of a button.

'No longer will they have to rely on paper-based systems but will instead be able to log on and see the latest information at the click of a mouse,' he added.

Users of the system can access the data in a variety of ways, all of which promise to save days of work from using data from other systems.

Lewis said that staff at one major leasing company, when being shown how to use IRVS, commented that it would have taken them four days to complete a calculation that the system had just performed in about 10 seconds.