During July EROAD held their annual Fleet Day in Hamilton NZ. It began in 2012 and has become one of the most important industry events for Fleet Managers and transport operators in New Zealand. Fleet Day gives a cross-section of the industry and brings together like-minded professionals to discuss the latest trends and challenges in fleet management with a focus on road safety and a bit of entertainment.
We spoke to Matt Fontein, Marketing Director – ANZ at EROAD, to see what we missed and he started by talking about the history of the event.
“It originally started with the Waikato Regional Council in 2012 to improve driver safety in fleets,” explained Fontein. “And I think it started with 50 attendees or so. In 2018, EROAD got involved as a joint partner and now runs the event.”
“Since then, Fleet Day has grown into one of the biggest transporting events in New Zealand it is today, with over 800 fleet industry experts in attendance last July. And we’ve gotten the blessing of Waikato Regional Council, our invaluable partnership keeps the event central to the three main themes of road safety, sustainability and fleet efficiency.”
“So this is the third Fleet Day I’ve been involved with and it has been growing about 50% year on year, which is phenomenal in a space where some automotive conferences in New Zealand are either declining or plateauing in attendance.”
“And that the reason for that success in my view is twofold. One, as a Fleet Solutions Provider, EROAD understands Fleet Managers, and we really try and focus on the learning outcomes for the attendees. We approach it as, we’ve got them for eight hours so how can we maximise that value so that they come out the other end with a better understanding around road safety; a better understanding around sustainability; and then some practical tips and tricks for making their fleet more efficient.”
“And it’s kind of nearly like a boot camp mentality. So rather than thinking, let’s find a speaker to talk about something, we focus on the learning outcome to find the best expert, either in Australia and New Zealand or wherever, that can best address that topic.”
“So that’s the first thing, and then secondly, we are cognizant that conferences can be quite dull. We want to make this an interactive and impactful day for attendees. So we have a decent lineup of over 100 light and heavy vehicles representing a spectrum of the latest fleet models, EVs and trucks that fleet managers actually buy, and we have some pretty amazing supercars as part of the exhibition.”
“Also, we find ways to demonstrate road safety beyond the valuable speaker insights alone. We had the Northwestern Waikato Road Policing Supervisor walk through how they go through the process when they get called out to serious road accidents.”
“And we actually dropped a car from 35 metres to demonstrate the impact of a crash. Being up that close to a vehicle once it’s just had an accident, and you smell the talcum powder smoke that comes out of the airbags, it’s real. If we make these folks leave at the end of the day, taking road safety a bit more seriously, that’s the winning formula.”
It sounded like a fantastic day for Fleet Managers in Hamilton and we’re sure 2024 will be even better with more speakers and exhibitors. But it’ll be hard to top the demonstration of a live crash to keep the fleet community talking about road safety.
