At TMC’s Annual Meeting held in Atlanta, ATA’s Technology and Maintenance Council and FleetNet announced the results of its Vertical Benchmarking Program, which presents a summary of roadside repairs experienced by truckload carriers.
“Our goal is the help our members–TMC participants–drive their costs down,” explained Jim Buell, executive vice president of sales and marketing for FleetNet. “We’re measuring miles between breakdowns and miles between repairs. A breakdown is when the asset is on the side of the road, but there could be more than one repair to get that asset back on the road. When you look at miles between repairs, it helps you make better decisions. And with breakdowns, it costs more to fix something on the side of the road. I believe understanding your roadside failures gives you great insight into your maintenance operation.”
According to the study’s executive summary, the miles participating fleets ran between breakdowns decreased 21% in Q1 2018 when compared to the Q4 2017. The five most frequent repairs in Q1 2018 included tires, lighting, brakes, exhaust systems and wheels/rims/hubs and bearing systems. These five repairs accounted for 37% of all roadside repairs in Q4 2017 and increased to 58% of all unscheduled repairs.
Zooming in on tires, on average, tire failures occurred every 32,733 miles, which was largely unchanged for the tire miles/repairs during Q4 2017.
The best-in-class fleet in the truckload vertical ran 3.7 times longer between roadside failures than the vertical average, according to the report.
Share 100% of unscheduled roadside repairs and accurately VMRS data. For more information and details on how to get involved, visit benchmarkit.fleetnetamerica.com.
