Over 150 members and guests have signed up so far for the event, which will be held on Tuesday 25th November at the Henry Ford College, Loughborough. The event is hosted by Ford Motor Company and co-sponsored by FMG. Support conference partners are Enterprise Rent-A-Car, British Car Auctions and Alphabet.

Chairman of the ICFM, Roddy Graham said: ‘Bookings for the conference are ahead of the same time last year, reflecting the strong interest in this year’s theme on autonomous vehicles. We also have a change to our morning in-dialogue panel session and are delighted to welcome fleet director of Ford of Britain, Phil Hollins.’

Experts participating in the session besides Phil Hollins include Bob Holbrey, group IT director, FMG; Gerry Keaney, chief executive, BVRLA; Craig Purvey, general manager corporate development, British Car Auctions; Adrian Bewley, head of business rental UK, Enterprise Rent-A-Car; and Dr Nick Reed DPhil (Oxon) CPsychol principal human factors researcher, TRL Senior Academy Fellow. The "in-dialogue" session will be facilitated by Peter Eldridge, ICFM director and Council Member.

After lunch, Tiff Needell will be the conference guest speaker, who will also present this year’s ICFM awards.

Rounding off the informative programme will be keynote speaker Hugh Dickerson, senior industry head automotive at Google, who will provide an insight into the rapid developments in technology and social media and their application in the retail and automotive sector plus an overview of Google’s autonomous vehicle testing programme, which has seen its test cars cover over 700,000 accident-free miles.

The annual national members’ conference will commence at 10.00am and finish at 3.30pm. ICFM members will be allowed to bring one guest with them free of charge.

To register their free attendance, ICFM members should complete the online booking form at www.icfm.com. The deadline for registration is 17th November 2014. Cost of attendance for non-members who are not guests is £70. Non-members who wish to attend the conference should e-mail: [email protected].