FLEETDRIVE
Jan Zagari | Fleet Manager | Austin Health
Well, things are still trucking along, but a lot of the
departments have ceased using their vehicles so
they are a lot quieter. But on the flip side of that,
I would have loved to have got the cars cleaned
and while we are in this quiet period, but I can't
get my cleaning crew in because of the virus.
Cars use has ramped up in some areas, so I have
had to move some cars out of other pools to
provide support in other locations. For example, in
our field pathologies have ramped up their blood
drives for obvious reasons and are using their cars
24/7, so I have been providing as much vehicle
coverage for them as possible.
From my perspective I have started working from
home and I'm tackling our FBT at the moment.
I don't necessarily have to be at work 24/7 so I
have an agreement with the boss to work from
home and only going in once or twice a week and
it’s working well.
I have got a few cars to order and I've been asking
dealers and the manufacturers if they expect to
have a significant impact from overseas deliveries
due to the virus. The indication is that there will
be, but now it is a bit of a ‘how long is a piece of
string?’ scenario and we just hold our breath.
I am still waiting on a quote for a vehicle that I
was told back in November 2019 that would be
priced in March, but we’re in April and I’ve been
told to expect further delays. These pricing delays
suggest to me that there will be a delay in shipping
and delivery times as well, but it is something
we’ve all got to brace for and just be patient with.
Geoff Archer | Leader Fleet and Depot |
City of Canning
We have been fortunate and will mostly
continue to operate, but there have been
some changes. I have had to hold vehicles
back from auction, especially the waste trucks.
We have some people working from home
and have got them to return any fleet vehicles
they were using which has added additional
vehicles to the fleet. The benefit of this has
been providing our operations staff with extra
space and vehicles.
That is probably been the biggest issue we've
had. We have had to find an extra 30 cars to
split up the teams through social distancing so
that there’s only one person in each vehicle.
In terms of the pandemic I think we may
just be at the worst of it already, but I think it
has going to be quite a bit longer that these
restrictions will remain in place. I think we are
going to come through okay.
We do all in-house servicing on our vehicles,
so we don’t have to rely too much on external
people. In some ways in terms of getting
things fixed or made, like with bodybuilders
or repairers the restrictions have been to our
advantage because things are less busy. There
is not as much demand for these industries,
so we've had priority service.
Some of the dealers have said that it is the
local governments that are keeping them
going at the moment – so that’s been a
positive amongst the disruptions.
ISSUE 22 2020 / WWW.AFMA.ORG.AU
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