Efficient fleet management at Örebro Municipality

The Maintenance Administration of Örebro Municipality owns around 1,000 cars, lorries and plant vehicles, which it hires out to the Municipality’s various departments. This presents a complex logistical challenge in keeping the vehicles safe, serviced and inspected for roadworthiness.

Automatic workflow for over 1000 vehicles

To achieve better control and streamline its fleet management, Örebro Municipality started working with TelliQ in April 2018, connecting 600 cars and light trucks to the TelliQ system.

Today, Örebro Municipality can use TelliQ’s digital platform to monitor how their vehicles are being used, and this has also allowed a fully automated flow when it comes to inspections. Magnus Andersson explains how the Municipality’s work practices have changed during the year.

“We used to have an employee who sent letters to the different units when it was time for vehicle inspections, which was quite a task with around a thousand vehicles involved.”

What happens now is that an email is automatically generated from the system based on the Swedish Transport Agency’s calendar, which lets the Municipality know when vehicles are due for inspection.

– “We have a setup whereby an email is sent one month before the inspection date, followed by two reminders. If there’s no response after that, a reminder is sent to a higher manager,” Magnus explains.

Once a vehicle has been inspected, it is registered with the Transport Agency and registered directly in the system, so the driver avoids having to do any manual follow-up.

" Being able to send out inspection notices digitally has been great; reducing paper is well in keeping with what we do. Today, a driver simply has to show photo ID to book a vehicle in for inspection. "

– Magnus Andersson, Fleet Manager at Örebro Municipality

A healthy vehicle park safer and more economical

Keeping the vehicles in good condition is both a safety and a financial issue, but the people who use the vehicles don’t always think of themselves as being responsible for maintenance. Reminders can therefore now be sent based on the data in the system when a service is due.

– “We used to have a little note on the car window saying how often it should be serviced, and it was up to the driver to book it in. For us, as fleet managers, it was hard to keep an eye on the service status since we only see the vehicles twice a year.”

Magnus and his team look at data such as mileage and how often the car is used, but they also receive all the error codes shown in the vehicles. This means that they can work proactively in contacting the departments and checking vehicle status. Connecting the vehicles has also brought other unanticipated benefits.

Invoicing and management information

As well as invoicing, the data is also used to optimise the vehicle fleet – an important aspect for Örebro Municipality and also a condition of its Vehicle Policy, which aims partly to reduce environmental impact and make the fleet as efficient as possible. Based on how the vehicles are actually used, it is easy to decide whether a vehicle should be phased out or moved to another department where it is needed more.

– “It’s a natural tool for optimising the vehicle fleet. If someone only drives their car 3,000 kilometres a year, for example, it may be better for them to take a taxi instead.”

The hope is to connect more people to the system, and to spend more time analysing the data being collected from the vehicles. In future, it may even be possible to manage the purchase of new cars based on how a department has used its vehicles previously.

Extended implementation – No problems

In the future, Magnus hopes to be able to increase the use of telematics also in heavier vehicles. We ask the Maintenance Administration whether it saves time with its new TelliQ system. Magnus answers assuredly:

“Absolutely. We’ve ordered a few more devices from TelliQ, and are currently testing how we could implement the system on our heavier vehicles and our park and land-moving plant.”

" It’s a natural tool for optimising the vehicle fleet. If someone only drives their car 3,000 kilometres a year, for example, it may be better for them to take a taxi instead. "

– – Magnus Andersson, Fleet Manager at Örebro Municipality

About Örebro Technical Management

Örebro Technical Management are responsible for Örebro’s streets, roads, traffic, water, sewage, waste, squares, parks, municipal vehicles and internal mail handling.