Brent Newton, Eastern Institute of Technology | Te Pūkenga Facilities Manager, shares how Fleetwise’s pool vehicle booking software (PBVS) decreases admin and streamlines booking processes.
Eastern Institute of Technology | Te Pūkenga (EIT) is a tertiary provider for Hawke’s Bay and the East Coast. With three campuses, it offers an extensive range of programmes supported by six regional learning centres.
For many years, EIT has used a vehicle booking software. However, after an unfortunate accident, the institution reassessed the software it was using.
Now, it’s using Fleetwise’s Pool Vehicle Booking Software (PVBS).
We spoke to Brent Newton, EIT’s Facilities Manager, who shared how Fleetwise has helped the institution decrease the administration work of managing its fleet so his team can focus on other tasks like campus maintenance and security.
Previous system missing some features
Before Fleetwise, EIT used another solution called Auto Central. Before that, booking a pool vehicle involved Excel spreadsheets and a cabinet of keys. So, at the time, moving to a digital PVBS was a big step for the tertiary provider.
After a staff-involved accident in an area where mobile coverage was patchy, EIT quickly invested in vehicle tracking software. At the same time, it re-examined its PVBS software and found some features were missing, particularly single sign-on and auto-cancellation.
That’s when it came across Fleetwise, which seamlessly integrated with its new vehicle tracking software, Argus Tracking.
Fleetwise and its team get an A+
With approximately 70 vehicles spread out across multiple East Coast locations, Brent says EIT needed a simple, easy-to-use car booking system – and that’s exactly what it got with Fleetwise.
While it’s been a few years since transitioning from Auto Central to Fleetwise, Brent remembers it being a straightforward process.
“It was a fairly daunting thought migrating from one system to another, but the Fleetwise team took care of all the administration required to make that change overnight,” he explains.
He says every time he’s asked for help since then, Fleetwise’s support team has been great to deal with.
“Any time we’ve needed to contact Fleetwise, we always get a good result and a quick turnaround.”
Fleetwise’s PVBS software is also super easy to use for all staff.
“Typically, we show a person once how to book a vehicle in Fleetwise, and they don’t usually come back to us,” says Brent. “Lots of people have also commented on how helpful Fleetwise’s video tutorials are.”
New features automate booking processes
With Fleetwise, EIT staff can book, collect and return a vehicle from a desktop or using their phone. It’s also easy for them to charge the cost of the vehicle booking using cost centre codes.
Fleetwise’s single sign-on feature has significantly reduced the number of forgotten password queries Brent’s team gets. So long as a staff member is logged on to EIT’s network with the correct details, they can click a button to log into Fleetwise.
Brent also recently trialled Fleetwise’s auto-cancellation feature with a small portion of the EIT fleet, and he’s keen to implement it across the rest.
Previously, administrators would either manually follow up on vehicles that hadn’t been collected, or they’d go unnoticed until someone logged into the system. Now, if a vehicle hasn’t been picked up within a certain timeframe, the booking is automatically cancelled and the vehicle becomes available again.
“On average, we have 85% of our fleet booked at any given time,” explains Brent. “The vehicles are busy, so it’s definitely an advantage to get them back into the fleet if they’re not being used.”
The cherry on top is that EIT can also manage its fleet’s ongoing road compliance and maintenance, previously tracked using an Excel spreadsheet. Every month, Brent pulls a report that tells him which vehicles are due for a warrant, new registration or service and, therefore, when he needs to close bookings for a particular vehicle.
“When I run a compliance report, it’s straightforward to see which vehicles are close to due and which ones I don’t have to worry about yet.”
Less admin, more efficiency
With Fleetwise’s help, EIT has streamlined its pool vehicle reservation process even more, while ensuring vehicles stay road-worthy and costs get allocated to the correct cost centres.
Brent’s team has better visibility of EIT’s fleet, and staff feel empowered to manage their pool vehicle bookings. Administrators are fielding fewer requests, and the software’s click-and-confirm functionality means they spend less time training users.
“At the time, moving to a digital PVBS was a huge leap for EIT. The move to Fleetwise is yet another step forward, and we’re very happy with the software,” says Brent.
