Fleets are getting a little good news with a little bad when it comes to maintenance. Incidents of unexpected roadside breakdowns are falling, but repair costs are climbing.
Incidents of unscheduled roadside maintenance are declining, according to the latest results of the Technology & Maintenance Council and FleetNet America Vertical Benchmarking Program. The findings were released Sunday at the Technology and Maintenance Council Fall Meeting & Transportation Technology Exhibition, In Cleveland.
According to the survey, which looks the frequency of unscheduled roadside breakdowns by VMRS code during the second quarter of 2021, fleets averaged 31,638 miles of operation between unscheduled road repairs – up 7.2% from 29,506 in the first quarter of 2021.Truckload carriers averaged 23,769 miles between breakdowns, an 8.8% increase in miles from the previous quarter.
"The ongoing series demonstrates that fleets can improve their breakdown performance if they follow the lead of best-in-class fleets in each of the vocational segments tracked,” said TMC Executive Director Robert Braswell.
The time between breakdowns for LTL carriers increased to 46,186 miles in the second quarter from 44,380 in the first quarter of 2021. The tank sector saw a slight improvement, running 18,241 miles in the second quarter, up from 17,420 in the previous quarter.
“The data tells us that if, for example, the truckload carriers running the average miles between breakdowns could reach best-in-class performance, they would increase their miles between breakdowns by 64%,” said Emily Hurst, manager of data and analytics at FleetNet America, “and that would result in overall lower costs.”
The data indicates, TMC and FleetNet said, that the maintenance practices of the best-in-class fleets in each vertical resulted in lower costs for those fleets. For example, the leading fleet in the tank vertical operated more than twice as many miles between roadside breakdowns than the average for the tank vertical.
