The Global Fleet Conference has just taken place in Brussels. This is an initiative of Global Fleet Services (GFS), which is an alliance of independent fleet management companies across the globe, originally established by ARI, one of North America’s largest fleet management and leasing companies, with 780,000 vehicles under management in the USA and a further 140,000 in Canada. This year, delegates from as far afield as Australia, South Africa, Mexico and Brazil, joined their North American and European counterparts to explore the differences between fleet management and customs in different countries.

Amongst interesting points to arise were the fact that the North American market is made up of 30% cars and 70% trucks/LUV’s, very much a ‘tool of the trade’ market. What are referred to as benefit cars in Europe make up only a tiny proportion of the fleet market. And America has not forgotten Henry Ford – 44% of fleet sales are made in vehicles bearing his name… On top of this, the American market tends not to insure vehicles for ‘own damage’, but just for third party liability. Staying with insurance, GFS president Jim Creighton (left in the photo with colleague Chris Conroy, centre, and Pascal Struyve of Ingersoll Rand), took many delegates from outside of the USA by surprise when he said that it was now common for the ‘injured party’ in an accident to claim back not just the cost of repairing the vehicle, but a sum to compensate for its future reduced value on the second hand market, because centralised records are so complete that any potential buyer will know that this vehicle has been in an accident.

The joint presentation by Janola Gustafson of Renault and André Dutkowski of Mercedes-Benz will be the subject of a separate article, but clearly the electric vehicle debate was raised, with a general belief that legislation (along with technological advances) would need to drive a market which is still largely cost-driven.

Returning to the North American market, telematics are much easier to install and use than in Europe, because of the quasi-absence of privacy laws. Where driver behaviour is concerned, some American companies issue ‘internal licences’ to drivers, who must prove they deserve to be granted one before being allowed to drive a company car…