Chevin: Winner with local authorities

Chevin are a leading provider of fleet management software systems to local authorities in the United Kingdom and now a significantly high proportion of their client base comes from this sector. New customers are signing up regularly with recent ones include Ashfield District Council, South Kesteven District Council and Hambleton District Council. RoadBASE® is the most popular choice for local authorities when it comes to choosing a software solution from Chevin. Customers identified that the main key to the success of RoadBASE® is the flexibility of the package over its competitors. RoadBASE® was first launched in 1990 and has since then grown and developed to become a very powerful and user-friendly system that continually meets the changing needs of its customers. Ashfield District Council in Nottinghamshire, operate a mixed fleet that includes refuse trucks and plant. Their goal was to be able to effortlessly manage their fleet from their Head Office whilst improving efficiency and overall costs. The fleet department wanted to easily plan and track vehicle testing and road fund licensing in advance, as opposed to the reactive and ad hoc approach that they were used to. In addition, quickly producing reports and general analysis from the fleet data was a necessity in order to compare vehicles and cost centres to make further future improvements to cut expenditure. RoadBASE® was able to achieve all this whilst flexibility was the key winning point during the decision-making process. For South Kesteven District Council in Lincolnshire, fleet management data was being managed using only manual records and there was a large degree of duplication between departments. They wanted to improve this system for their 120 vehicle fleet that included cars, vans, sweepers, tippers and 30 pool cars. RoadBASE® is now saving administrators’ valuable time as the pool module is able to manage allocations effortlessly where durations can sometimes be a matter of only a few minutes. They will also use the system to import data from their fuel cards and produce valuable analysis from the fleet data for different departments within the council, including accounts. Hambleton District Council in North Yorkshire had the usual local authority requirements of wanting complete workshop and stock control together with full auditability. They had a variety of different systems and ultimately, wanted just one solution that tied all their stock and fleet systems together that easily integrated with their accounts package. They also wanted a system that was flexible enough to manage and cope with all the different types and specifications of the vehicles in their fleet. After an initial evaluation, they chose RoadBASE® because if offered a complete solution. Ashley Sowerby, Managing Director of Chevin Fleet Solutions said, "we have been told there is a certain assurance that new customers receive when choosing Chevin. This is because our software has proven to be a success in this sector time and time again and this experience enables us to offer clients exactly what they are looking for and meet their specific needs."