The conference opening address was delivered by Mr Roger Jaensch, Parliamentary Secretary for Small Business, Trade and Red Tape Reduction, Tasmanian Government. He emphasised the importance of selecting the right vehicle for the job and taking into account employee safety. Taxpayers view the types of vehicles used by government very carefully and expect politicians and public servants to be reasonable in their vehicle choices. They have achieved ongoing savings of $1.5 million per year with their vehicle fleet including a 20% reduction in fuel costs. He believes that Tasmania is well placed to introduce more electric vehicles as they have a significant base load of renewable energy in hydro power and they are supporting the upcoming electric vehicle festival in Devonport which will be the largest of its type in the Southern hemisphere.
Richard Dudley presented a current view of the automotive industry and the political climate. There has been little progress in addressing the outcomes form the 2015 Senate Enquiry and no significant co-ordinated policy initiatives. The Automotive Directions report has identified a shortfall in technical capability of 27,500 positions now, rising to 35,000 within a few years. With over 20 million cars on our roads by 2020 this skills shortage is a major concern. Bloomberg and others have forecast that electric vehicle (EV) sales will exceed conventional internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles within 20 years plus the cost of batteries continues to fall helping to drive the demand for EVs. There will be over 500 million EVs worldwide by 2040. He also raised the matter of better management of the disposal of over 800,000 end of life vehicles and suggested that a more integrated approach was needed to maximise the returns from these vehicles including increase recycling.
Qfleet has identified some significant challenges including data management and ownership, data storage and security together with the issue of information overload. A case study of a telematics system showed significant benefits with reduced accidents, fewer vehicles required and overall cost savings with a payback of the $10 million investment in a little over 18 months. The Queensland Government has introduced the electric super highway with the aim of providing charging stations for EVs all the way from the Gold Coast to Cairns. The environmental policy has a strong focus on EVs and reducing emissions. In any change management process, it is important to bring the staff along the journey as well as having customer buy-in. Their car sharing trial in Brisbane has been very successful.
The NSW Government fleet has transitioned to an external funding and fleet management model with existing vehicles running off current Treasury financing through until 2021. There are six on the fleet lessor panel and two on the fleet management panel with clients only able to deal directly with the fleet manager of choice. They introduced a fleet supplier forum to identify improvement opportunities in the procurement and payment process which has resulted in a much-simplified supplier engagement process which has eliminated all emails from the transactions, reducing errors and delays. Supplier payment times have reduced significantly. This has been possible because they introduced JIRA incorporating a data cube for collation and analytics including supplier performance scorecards. The key theme is changing from a car centric approach to a people centric model. Their supplier pre-qualification scheme simplifies procurement. The shared mobility trial involves data sharing, GoGet vehicles and in-car technology. The challenges for EVs remain as cost premium, limited range and charging infrastructure, although they are improving.
While Tasmania has a smaller fleet than other states it still has similar challenges. Changing the culture from want based to needs based is an ongoing issue. The size of the fleet has reduced and that have achieved significant fuel cost and emission reductions. They have a strong view that Tasmania is ideally placed to introduce more EVs because most of the baseload power is renewable and many of the trips are relatively short. A recent audit of fuel cards identified several weaknesses in controls although no evidence of fraud, so they have introduced PINs for all cards, single fuel only on each card and they have removed all low usage cards.
The NT fleet has some current challenges including a change of government, new technology, loss of Australian made vehicles, requests for non-genuine accessories, the new vehicle induction process and the difficulty in sometime being able to source the required vehicles due to procurement competition from outside NT. They are very conscious on the chain of responsibility obligations, including mass management on the vehicles that require significant accessory fittings to travel to remote areas, resulting in sometimes quite limited load carrying capacity therefore reducing the operational effectiveness.
Frank Eggert discussed the proper development and management of a driving policy including the key elements and the importance of regular reviews and document version control. Key inclusions relate to driver responsibilities, rules for use, eligibility, a driver agreement and a disciplinary process. Fleet managers have a responsibility under WH&S legislation as well as Heavy Vehicle National Law and regulations where, in both cases, the penalties for individuals and organisations can be severe. The two key issues are now telematics and autonomous vehicles.
Teletrac Navman presented a compelling case for using telematics as a management tool for both vehicles and a range of mobile assets. Their system has some important features including remote communications, backup batteries, tamper detection, diagnostic box hard wired in to the asset, pre-trip inspection recording and FBT reporting. The system is supported by a very comprehensive reporting tool. They also provide a fatigue management tool called Sentinel that will message the driver when they have driven continuously for a designated period such as the recommended 2 hours and 15 minutes. They can also track real time events and driving behaviour, deliver driver report cards, offer online driver training and provide a means to manage in-car mobile phone use if necessary.
GoGet is a car sharing business model where you drive a shared vehicle vs. the ride sharing model such as UBER where another person drives you in their vehicle. The professional version of car sharing generally involves new vehicles, a card access system, online bookings as short as one hour and it is intended to hyper local in operation. It is generally lower cost than using grey fleet or taxis and the risk of poor vehicle condition and insurance problems are removed. The typical cost for short term use is around $8 per hour and all fuel, maintenance and fuel is included. There are over 2,400 GoGet vehicles in Australia and it is growing. GoGet are working with DEXUS to put share cars into particular buildings for use by its tenants. The other type of car sharing is peer to peer where neighbours can share a vehicle. Latrobe University successfully trialled GoGet integrated with their pool cars.
The Electric Vehicle Council (EVC) is membership based and has a focus on government policy and support together with industry involvement. Australia is lagging other countries generally because of the lack of any subsidies or tax incentives for EVs. In 2016 the total world EV sales were over 753,000 but only 1.369 sold in Australia and then mostly to government fleets. It is expected that an EV will be cheaper than a conventional ICE vehicle by 2025. The barriers continue to be cost and availability, charging infrastructure and consumer awareness. Charging will evolve with more wireless charging and employers offering charging at work for private vehicles as a benefit.
BMW is the world leader in the sale of EVs with over 100,000 units sold in one year supported by over 60,000 charging stations. They suggest that the key influences on them as a company are the environment, urbanisation, economics, culture, politics and customer expectation. The BMW i brand is a major initiative for the company with significant development resources to remain the world leader in EV sales. The overall strategy is Autonomous, Electrified, Connected and Shared (AECS). The 5 levels of autonomous driving can be described as feet off, hands off, eyes off, mind off and level 5, complete disengagement including sleeping while the vehicle is moving with no control at all over the vehicle. They also mentioned the Light and Charge concept where charging points can be installed into city street lights.
The Toyota fuel cell vehicle MIRAI was displayed and the technology explained. The fuel cell uses hydrogen to create water and electrical energy with no harmful emissions. It is energy on demand as well a small battery on board to store energy from regenerative braking but it is never externally charged. The energy density of hydrogen is currently 3X that of a conventional Li-ion battery meaning that the hydrogen stored on board for the same range is much less in weight and volume. The hydrogen is stored at very high pressure (700 bar) and refilling takes only three minutes for around 5 kg or 500 km range. There are many sources of hydrogen and in the future it is possible that Australian hydrogen production could be significant and exports of hydrogen could exceed LPG by 2040. The SA Government is a strong supporter of the hydrogen initiative. The Hydrogen Mobility Association is focussed on commercialisation, it is a forum for communication about hydrogen and is promoting the transition to a hydrogen energy based country.
Pickles is making a very large investment in systems and technology, $40 million over 5 years to deliver better services for sellers and buyers including diagnostic testing, better visual imaging, augmented reality, self-inspection tools, upstream selling and improved connectivity such as the new software platform iungo. They have improved their Net Promoter Score again last year to plus 30, a very good outcome. They have achieved formal accreditation for their safety and environmental systems. The market for construction equipment and Japanese trucks has been strong due to the level of civil construction on the Eastern seaboard. Trucks are up 15%, prime movers up 20% and excavators up 25%, all good news for government fleets, particularly local government.
Hobart City has a small fleet but similar problems to the larger fleets. They have a good motor vehicle policy (MVP) but there continues to be some employees who disregard the policy regarding parking, towing, vehicle inspections, unauthorised use, boat ramp use and vehicle selection. They do involve the employees in vehicle selection guidelines and the 4-cylinder aspect of the policy generally works quite well. There are some operational works where a 4-cylinder vehicle is not adequate. GPS tracking is in all vehicles and major mobile plant which enables them to have accurate and timely data on each unit, particularly if there has been an accident or incident. The Unions have signed off on the system but there are strict controls over who has access to the data. There are ongoing issues with the private use vehicles and because the approved commuter limit is 50km radius, there are some employees having very long commutes with the associated costs. They would prefer not to have any grey fleet vehicles because of the many risk issues.
A presentation on MVP principles identified the key elements of a sound policy and the recommended process to use when developing and reviewing the policy. A case study was presented involving a council with an apparently serious problem with a small number of regular drivers regularly exceeding the posted speed limit by considerable margins as well as obvious underutilisation of vehicles. These issues were identified when a detailed analysis was completed on the available telematics data. The MVP and associated guidelines were reviewed and amended to clarify the Council’s expected standards of driving behaviour and vehicle use including utilisation. The use of grey fleet vehicles without adequate controls was highlighted, suggesting that a grey fleet vehicle is as much a workplace as the Council provided vehicle and as such, should have adequate controls regarding safety features, maintenance and road worthiness. Checking of driving licences was raised and the need for all drivers to sign a motor vehicle use agreement. Managing problem drivers should be based on an education/awareness program that aims to modify poor driving behaviour with strong disciplinary action as a final step.
The Australian Driverless Vehicle Initiative (ADVI) has 100 partners including many large corporations with the aim to raise awareness of the need to address the road rules, insurance issues and identify social impacts. Road trauma in Australia is a $27 billion problem that would be partly addressed through greater use of autonomous vehicles, reducing the extent of driver error. Driverless vehicles would help with road congestion, accident reduction, lowering emissions, improved security and improved accessibility for old and disabled persons. It is estimated that the opportunity is at least $95 billion worldwide and Australia could be part of that. One of the challenges is changing public perception which now suggests that over 80% of drivers want to retain some degree of driving control.
The final presentation was a report on the findings of the Commonwealth Government Inquiry into the Social Issues Relating to Land Based Driverless Vehicles. One of the issues raised was the difficult changeover period between the current situation and the advent of very large numbers of automated vehicles. The inquiry identified several significant issues including adequacy of current road rules, traffic management improvements, benefits to older people and those with a disability, insurance aspects, safety concerns and the importance of making sure that remote and regional areas of Australia are not disadvantaged. The inquiry made 10 recommendations including changing any reference to driverless vehicles to automated vehicles, recognising that not all vehicles will be driverless and there will be varying degrees of automation. One of the key recommendations relate to setting up and funding adequate trials to showcase the technology and let people experience the benefits so that it can be more readily accepted by the broader community. Automated vehicles will necessarily involve the capture of vast amounts of data and privacy and security of data will be critical. Cyber security will be an important consideration. The overall benefits to Australia can be very significant if the technology is introduced carefully and equitably. The Commonwealth Government will need to lead the transition with funding and the establishment of a national task force to ensure that there is uniformity and broad acceptance. The findings of the Inquiry are available here.
John Boland
Conference Chair 23 October 2017
