A new £3 billion force in the fleet market has been created with the formal launch of the Fleet200, whose members make up some of Britain’s biggest fleets.

The invitation-only Fleet200 is a unique venture which was formally launched this month at an exclusive breakfast meeting in London.

It is made up of the 10 biggest fleets in 10 key industry sectors, which qualify according to their car and van fleet sizes.

Together the companies operate more than 500,000 vehicles and have an annual fleet budget of more than £3 billion, with Fleet200 companies spending more than £1 billion a year on fuel alone.

Companies listed account for a large part of the entire end-user fleet market and their actions are a major influencing factor on manufacturers and suppliers, so as part of the launch process, fleet members have been surveyed to examine a number of key issues.

In addition to identifying fleet size and spending power, significant further analysis has been carried out to establish sector trends, analyse broad strategic drivers, highlight current and future issues and map out the decision-making process within major fleets.

A summary of the Fleet 200 will be revealed in a special supplement in Fleet News next month, based on work carried out by its sister company Sewells, the specialist automotive research company.

A confidential report is also being prepared by Sewells which will also be launched next month.

Further research will focus on benchmarking companies in the 10 key sectors, to enable them to identify efficiencies and ensuring they are operating as cost-effectively as possible.

Every major industry sector is covered within the 10 key categories created for the Fleet 200, including transport, public sector, bluelight, utilities, retail, business services, banking, construction, technology and media.

Stephen Briers, editor of Fleet News, said: “We have established the fleet sizes and dug down into the 10 industry sectors to identify the strategic drivers and to understand current issues and highlight future issues.

“We now understand the future strategic outlook of these 200 large fleets.”