5 questions about municipal fleet strategy

1. What are some of the most common concerns you are seeing in the municipal segment of the industry?

The ripple effects of the pandemic are still a real concern for a lot of our municipal customers. Whether it be the lack of available parts to repair out-of-service trucks or the shortage of technicians to work on them, there are some real concerns about how to keep trucks up and running on a daily basis. In addition, OEMs still are working through the backlog of truck orders developed during the pandemic, which has required cities to keep trucks in their fleet longer than expected, leading to more unexpected downtime within their fleet.

2. Does BTR offer any municipal-specific rental programs?

We have municipal customers who are using the full range of our solutions from short-term rentals for seasonal cleanup projects to long-term rentals that help bridge the gap while waiting for new truck purchases to be delivered. However, our Complete Fleet program has been extremely helpful, specifically for cities that are dealing with the shortage of trucks and technicians stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic. With any of our rental programs, we also can add all of the preventative maintenance (PM) services through our mobile service team. All of our rental and service programs are available through our OMNIA Partners cooperative contract.

3. How does the mobile PM program work?

Because of the difficulty of finding both parts and technicians, we heard from many of our customers that maintaining rental trucks was becoming more of a challenge. With this in mind, we developed our full-service maintenance program that includes all scheduled preventative maintenance services throughout the rental period for a flat monthly fee. Our mobile technicians will perform these services on off days, weekends or evenings so that our customers see no impact on their daily operations, and we can ensure that these important services get completed in a timely fashion. Our technicians also will notify customers of any other potential services required outside of the PM services, which can help save our customers from costly downtime events.

4. Can you describe BTR’s Complete Fleet program in more detail?

Complete Fleet allows a city to leverage rental as either a permanent, ongoing fleet solution or a recurring rental over a set period of time each year to assist with seasonal peaks in service levels. With either option, Complete Fleet will provide an immediate fleet upgrade and eliminate the fluctuations in maintenance costs that accompany aging trucks. With the ongoing fleet solution, BTR will provide new replacement trucks every 18-24 months on average, and with the recurring solution, we will deliver the trucks on an as-needed basis with a minimum commitment of only six months per year.

5. What benefits are your municipal customers seeing that have signed up with BTR’s Complete Fleet?

Our cities and counties that have implemented the Complete Fleet program all have seen a significant increase in uptime and productivity now that they are no longer relying on old, unreliable trucks. Financially, this program has stabilized our customers’ monthly costs because the surprise big-ticket maintenance items are no longer a concern. In one particular situation, a city that we partnered with saved over $20,000 in operational costs annually by retiring older trucks in their fleet and immediately replacing these with brand new BTR rental trucks. Complete Fleet also de-risks any future supply chain interruptions since the city can rely on the significant inventory that is available through BTR. Lastly, Complete Fleet customers have seen an increase in employee retention and recruitment because having newer equipment has been a tremendous selling point for new drivers.