Lessons from the RAC’s 1 Man, 1 Van Approach

For most companies, the idea of having one man, one van is preposterous - especially if you operate a busy fleet. However, this practice can help to make your fleet far more efficient, operating with a much more streamlined process and helping to cut costs.

How is this done? By giving each driver their own van, they become accountable for it. This means that they take a huge amount of pride in that vehicle and are much more likely to take care of it and drive it well. In fact, the driver’s name and years of service are also included on the side of the van, really bringing the personalised touches in. Uniquely for the RAC, their drivers are also allowed to carry out their own maintenance on their vehicles.

Operating the fleet in this way means that the RAC can drastically reduce the number of spare vehicles it needs available. Currently, there are only eight spare vehicles available in a fleet of 1,500 vans!

Surprisingly, the RAC do not purchase their own vehicles instead they operate on a leasing scheme where the vehicle is replaced every five-years or 125,000 miles. This helps to reduce the number of big ticket issues that arise and eliminates the cost to the RAC as maintenance becomes the vehicle leasing company’s concern.

In addition to this, the RAC use their data base to find historical patterns and relocate their resources to areas that are often in demand. This helps to reduce the timeframe in which it takes to respond to customers, making the running of the company much more efficient.