Fleet News Group talks with leaders at mapping technology specialists HERE Technologies and Hema Maps in this podcast about their location services that help keep drivers on remote roads safe.

Robert Gallagher, HEMA Maps MD: “We're collecting enough data out there to get people into the regions and back home safely.”

Dan Antonello, GM ANZ, HERE Techonologies: “A lot of the products that come out of the content that we collect go into the navigation systems, turn-by-turn instructions for vehicles, but you also see, for your audience in particular, a lot of information going into the fleet telematics.”

“A lot of our customers are looking to do business with people who are net carbon neutral,” Philip Browne, MD of Autorola, Australia, tells Fleet Auto News’ Caroline Falls in this podcast. Browne talks about soaring used car prices, the group’s lean marketing practices of used fleet vehicles, and how they helped the online auctioneer go carbon neutral.

“It's all about being lean, and, and looking at processes to eliminate wasteful, expensive processes and move everything to an online environment ,” said Browne.

A key point of difference between Autorola and competitors is that Autorola doesn’t have a central site for storing and selling used vehicles. It only shifts vehicles from the seller to the buyer, eliminating costs and carbon emissions associated with moving vehicles to an auction site.

In our latest Fleet Auto News podcast we talked to Danielle Lackey, chief legal officer at Motus, a software as a service business for route planning, and accounting for personal use of fleet vehicles, among other things. We talked about the landscape in the United States and the appetite for transport sustainability.

The data captured by Motus from the 300,000 drivers using its system underpins the Internal Revenue Service’s business mileage standard, or the amount that an individual can deduct for business vehicle expenses.

Motus has also captured and analysed emissions data from the myriad various vehicles in its orbit to create carbon emissions reporting products that enables its clients to measure and manage their own sustainability goals.

Max Wang, an architect of the RACV’s multi-model journey planning app Arevo, talks to Fleet News Group’s Caroline Falls for this podcast linked here about MaaS, or mobility as a service, and how it can help fleets meet sustainability goals.

For a lesson 101 on MaaS, Wang, now Senior Product Manager at Intelematics, a pioneer Australian telematics group and a unit of RACV, the royal automobile club of Victoria, said the term MaaS really refers to this idea of making transport as easy, accessible, and sustainable as possible.

Fleet News Group spoke to Balz Eggenberger, Founder of Swiss-based fleet management consultancy Fleetcompetence, about the way fleets are managing the transition to electric vehicles in Europe.

Eggenberger who works with 55 partners in Europe and the US said the pivot to sustainability has brought the top management to the table with fleet management. He talked about being involved in two big projects where general management has set sustainability targets.

The huge swing to EVs in Europe has been propelled by companies setting zero-emission targets for carbon.

Ampol’s head of e-Mobility Angeles Miranda talks to Fleet Auto News Caroline Falls for our podcast series about the Australian petroleum company’s rollout of a national electric vehicle charging network, called AmpCharge, and how fleets are making the transition to  EVs.

In April 2022, Ampol announced it was rolling out an EV charging network at its petrol stations around the country, the first of which are set to open in June 2022.

Route planning can cut emissions as much as 20 percent is the takeaway from this podcast conversation with HERE Technologies’ Jason Jameson. Caroline Falls talks with the technology group’s general manager Asia Pacific about how technology can help organisations meet their sustainability goals.

“Sustainability is the big challenge of our time,” said Jameson, adding, “And from a business standpoint, it’s interesting because if you can reduce emissions, reduce the carbon footprint, as opposed to just offsetting it, you're really making a meaningful difference to the environment.”

Jameson said a 20 percent cut in emissions from route planning and optimisation is typical. He said idle times can be cut 20 percent, and estimated time of arrival on pickups and deliveries can be cut as much as 40 percent.

Bree Allen, Business Development Manager at Summit Fleet Leasing and Management, reckons you can make the business case now to have an electric car versus a traditional ICE vehicle. In this podcast Bree considers the total cost of ownership for going electric. 

“More and more people are enthusiastic about electric vehicles. There's a few factors driving change. Climate change awareness has to be a major driver. People in companies are concerned about the environment. A lot of companies also nowadays have emission targets built within their future business plans. The local government incentives are also assisting to drive that change. Plus technology advances including batteries, as well as the long term plans for manufacturers. We're not really going to be able to purchase ICE vehicles in decades to come. So I'm finding more and more companies are dipping their toes into what the future of fleet will look like.”

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Each year in Australia about 23 million car and motorbike tires are discarded. Another 19 million or so much larger truck tyres also finish up life on the road each year. In all, it’s some 330,000 tonnes of tyres that reach end of life each year in Australia.

The good news is that most of those are disposed of properly, recovered and processed ready for recycling and other uses thanks to Tyre Stewardship Australia, which is funded by accredited tyre brands and suppliers, and which focuses on ensuring as many as possible used tyres are collected and recycled.

Fleet Auto News spoke recently to TSA’s CEO Lina Goodman for our podcast about the problems and possibilities for new uses of spent tyres. TSA was formed in 2013 with its two key objectives to arrest the flow of used tyres going to landfill, and to find new uses for old and recycled tyres. While the earlier focus was on getting tyre suppliers to do the right thing, Goodman is presently focussed on getting fleet management organisations, and fleets, to become TSA accredited.

Today, some 90 percent of used tyres in Australia are saved from landfill.

Fleet Auto News’ Caroline Falls talks with Tim Roberts, founder of Perth-based consultancy Fleet Strategy and former AfMA, the Australasian Fleet Management Association. They talk about eco driving among other things. In particular they discuss a project Tim worked on with the National Roads Safety Partnership Program, developing a so-called tool box kit designed to help fleet managers lead a conversation with their drivers on the benefits of eco driving. 

Thankyou Sofico Services for sponsoring this podcast.