Fleets Warned to Take Fuel Saving Steps

Fleets have been warned that they should still be taking proactive measures to manage fuel use – even though petrol and diesel prices have started to fall from recent peaks. Crude oil prices are now more than a third lower than the July peak of $147 a barrel. Pump prices are some way behind this kind of drop but petrol is already nearer an average of 110 pence per litre rather than the 120 pence of recent months.

However, fleet software market leader CFC Solutions says that although fuel prices have fallen back from their peak, fleet managers still need to be doing everything possible to proactively manage this cost. Neville Briggs, managing director, said: “The important statistic to bear in mind is not that petrol is eight pence per litre cheaper than it was a few weeks ago but that it is still around 50 pence per litre more expensive than it was in 2002.

“The picture that has developed in recent years suggests that whatever short term peaks and troughs are encountered, petrol and diesel prices will continue to rise well above the rate of inflation and probably faster than any other fleet cost…Even at today’s lower prices, petrol and diesel are still around 15-20 per cent higher at the pump than a year ago. Fuel is a cost that is forming an ever larger part of fleet expenditure.

“There is an attitude in the fleet industry that fuel is a cost that cannot really be managed, that you have to just grin and bear rising prices but the truth is that it is an expense that responds to controls just like any other.”