How to stay in control during peak fleet demand

Every year, certain special dates mark what we call “seasonal demand” or a “period of peak fleet demand.” In other words, a time when delivery needs increase because of more purchases during the period.

These dates may be celebrations such as Mother's Day, Father's Day and Christmas, or simply a period of large discounts and promotions, as with Black Friday. In all these cases, purchase volumes increase.

For both online and in-store purchases, the need to transport these goods also increases. During these periods, fleets commonly experience some difficulties, causing delivery confusion and missed deadlines.

To keep your transport operation organized and ensure greater peace of mind during these periods of peak fleet demand, learn more:

• What is seasonal demand?
• What impact do periods of peak fleet demand have?
• How can you prepare your operation for a period of peak fleet demand?

What is seasonal demand?

Seasonal demand is simply a time of year when buying and selling demand increases, directly affecting the volume of transport services.

Although it can alarm fleet managers, who struggle with organization and delivery delays during these periods, it has a major benefit: the predictability of actions, since these periods of peak fleet demand repeat every year.

This makes it easier to anticipate fleet needs and maintain efficient control.

What impact do periods of peak fleet demand have?

The entire logistics industry and production chain are affected by seasonal demand. Suppliers need to fulfill more orders so retailers and factories can produce more goods, and transport companies need to make more deliveries.

In many cases, fleets end up overloaded and lose control of some deliveries. This can lead to complaints and lost business opportunities.

At times, high demand can disrupt internal processes and vehicle performance. That is, as vehicles move more, tasks such as completing the daily inspection checklist stop being carried out, potentially missing an imminent vehicle issue and causing a breakdown on the route.

In these cases, the consequence is not just a late delivery, but the financial losses from correcting the issue and time lost replanning delivery routes for those products.

Another factor affecting the fleet during these periods of increased demand is employee fatigue. Whether for managers or drivers, excessive workload increases tiredness and may generate more errors and rework in the routine.

How can you prepare your operation for peak fleet demand?

Some fundamental steps to maintain fleet control during peak demand periods are:

Anticipating demand

Anticipating demand also happens based on data generated by fleet operations. If you do not already have established methods in your operation for generating and collecting day-to-day information, you need to start investing in them.

Even if decisions for the period are not entirely data-based, think about everything that happened during the last seasonal demand period: were there too few employees? Vehicles? Were many vehicles sent for corrective maintenance? Were there many missed delivery deadlines?

Assess all the positives and negatives, identifying where improvements are needed. That is anticipating demand and helping you plan everything you need to acquire and organize before the next period arrives.

Using technologies

Logistics technologies emerged to make day-to-day transport operations easier, and you should use them. You can find options to control maintenance, tires, drivers, trips and so on.

Analyze your fleet's greatest need and adopt the ones that make the most sense for your current reality.

Besides providing more reliable data and automating some tasks, such as organizing that information in the system itself, they also contribute to fleet process standardization.

Process standardization

This is a very important part of fleet operations. Without a standard for behavior and task execution, you are likely to face substantial rework and low productivity in your routine.

When filling out vehicle checklists, for example, if they are manual, each driver has their own understanding and may end up using them differently.

While one marks “X” for items that are “OK,” others may use the same “X” symbol for items that do not comply. What a mess, right?

Therefore, process standardization should be one of your priorities. As mentioned above, using technology for fleet processes greatly facilitates this stage.

Standardization also allows everything to happen more naturally and quickly to meet seasonal fleet demand. If everyone already knows exactly how to perform a task, it takes less time and has a small chance of problems.

Maintenance planning

Scheduled fleet maintenance ensures vehicle operation and performance.

Also known as preventive maintenance, it includes vehicle inspection and scheduling preventive services such as wheel alignment and tire rotation.

This increases vehicle durability and prevents mechanical failures and unexpected issues on the route.

In your fleet maintenance plan, you can detail the inspection schedule, how to carry out inspections, tips for filling out checklists (if they are on paper), who is responsible for each task, the planned budget for preventive and corrective services, among other information.

Annual fleet planning

The importance of planning before execution is undeniable. After all, planning describes all the ideas for actions you want to carry out and the motivation behind them.

Clarifying why you believe in an action and what result is expected also helps measure its effectiveness.

For example, if the action is “acquire 5 new vehicles to meet seasonal Black Friday 2022 demand,” you can support the argument by saying that the fleet has difficulty handling deliveries because of a lack of equipment.

Results will then be measured by the number of completed and delayed deliveries during the period of peak fleet demand, compared with the previous year.

Of course, to support the actions described in fleet planning, it is important to use data generated throughout the previous period. Nothing is better for understanding what the fleet needs than seeing what was actually missing, right?

Now take a look at how to create fleet planning that delivers real results.