A new seven-year deal has been signed by Motability Operations to continue to use the 1link Service Network e-commerce platform.

The deal will see Motability, the UK’s largest fleet with around 465,000 vehicles, use 1link to process all authorisations for car maintenance work.

The system allows a team of Motability maintenance engineers to process 420,000 transactions every year across 3,500 service providers.

1link Service Network creates online links between major fleets and providers of maintenance services.

It replaces the previous phone and fax method of authorising fleet work with an online mechanism.

Around 40% of maintenance actions handled through 1link are authorised automatically on-line and the rest are dealt with by Motability Operations’ engineers in an average of five minutes.

“1link Service Network provides us with the means to see exactly what is happening to the maintenance of our fleet, controlling costs, raising service levels and resolving any issues rapidly,” said Steve Thurman, general manager of fleet technical services at Motability Operations.

Motability has been using 1link Service Network since January 2003 and was among the first UK fleets to adopted the system.

1link Service Network is designed to provide an online trading platform bringing together suppliers and purchasers, such as fleet operators.