New Vehicle Replacement Planner technology from FleetCheck can help Covid-affected fleets calculate when cars and vans should be renewed.

FleetCheck’s Vehicle Replacement Planner can help fleets identify a suitable standard replacement cycle and can also be used for a specific vehicle to provide a dynamic tool

According to the fleet management software specialist, the issue has become much more difficult for businesses because of the pandemic and the resultant changes to replacement cycles.

Managing director Peter Golding said: “Since March of last year, most fleets have found themselves for extended periods either operating in the frontline of the crisis and racking up mileage at a higher rate than usual, or parked at home waiting until physical meetings were possible again.

“This has made a nonsense of the kind of conventional, static replacement cycles under which most fleets have been operating for decades, shortening or increasing the potential fleet life of vehicles to a quite substantial degree.

“All of this is being complicated by the current shortage of new cars and vans, which is seeing vehicle order times sometimes stretching 12 months into the future. This is very much a live issue for a large part of our user base.”

Responding to requests from many customers for assistance in this area, FleetCheck has spent several months working on a solution and it believes its Vehicle Replacement Planner provides a comprehensive answer.

The planner, which is being added free of charge to FleetCheck’s Expert and Professional levels of fleet management software, incorporates key factors affecting replacement. These include vehicle mileage, age, total maintenance costs and the finance terms under which it is funded.

These settings can be created by the user and customised to suit their existing vehicle replacement policy, or benchmark profiles created by FleetCheck can be adopted.

Golding explained: “The planner can be used in two ways. Firstly, it can help fleets to identify a suitable standard replacement cycle for use across their fleet, or for different vehicle types they operate.

“Secondly, it can be used in a dynamic manner where there is no standard replacement policy, showing when a vehicle is likely to need replacing based on parameters you have set and its usage pattern over time, which is especially useful because of the pandemic.

“Used in either way, the planner indicates well into the future when replacement is likely to need to happen, so orders can be placed many months in advance, helping to ease the current shortages problem.”