Developed in response to demand from international fleet clients, the new portal goes live with selected clients in April, following tests running this month. Dependent on the level of feedback and changes necessary, there will be a complete roll-out later in the year across Fleet Logistics' complete client base, which covers some 80,000 vehicles across Europe.

The new fleet manager portal provides fleet operators with a comprehensive picture of all aspects of their fleet operation, regardless of the number of countries being operated in.

The portal comprises four main elements. The first is an extensive suite of operational and strategic online and real-time reports giving complete transparency into every aspect of the fleet, including TCO, carbon footprint, makes and models of all vehicles, third-party suppliers including leasing companies, and many more.

Reports that can be produced are many and varied and can be customised to meet fleet operators' exact needs. They can also be configured for automatic delivery at pre-arranged time intervals, such as weekly, monthly or quarterly.

The second element of the fleet manager portal takes the form of reporting "cubes" to interrogate and analyse the fleet through two distinct data channels, the first looking at the total operating cost of all elements of the fleet, and the other at the composition of the fleet by make and model of all vehicles.

The cost cube allows the fleet manager to "slice and dice" the TCO of fleet in by country, legal entity, business unit and cost type. For example, the fleet manager can slice the TCO by business unit, then drill down to a country and then to the fuel costs of the business unit in the selected country. In other cases, he or she may want to select the fuel cost at the TCO level, then slice by country and finally see the cost per business unit in the selected country.

The vehicle cube provides total information about all vehicles on the fleet and allows analysis by key parameters such as country, legal entity, business unit, make, model, carbon emissions and fuel consumption.

The third element of the portal is a search feature which allows the fleet manager to search for detailed fleet data, such as details of a driver, a contract or a vehicle.

If requested, the search feature also allows the fleet manager to access and modify records for drivers by, for example, inputting details for new starters or updating employee levels and cost centres; in fact, to update any information for which the fleet manager is the source.

The fourth and final element of the new portal consists of an exception reporting facility which creates alerts to show when certain events have occurred that may need a reaction by the fleet operator.

These can be triggered by certain incidents not taking place, such as drivers failing to submit mileage information when required, or by actions taken outside fleet policy guidelines, such as drivers buying premium branded fuel rather than standard.

Remedial action can then be taken by the fleet manager and other line managers to correct the behaviours that first triggered the alert.

Thomas Emmert, chief operating officer at Fleet Logistics, commented: 'We have responded to demand from our fleet clients for this new, highly sophisticated portal, which provides the fleet manager with far greater control and insight into the fleet than before. 

'We fully expect to add further features, enhancements and reports to the portal based on the feedback we receive from the first wave of fleet users. These will be drawn from those international fleet operators who identified the greatest need for this kind of new functionality in helping with the management of their fleets,' he said.