Buying Trends: Purchasing, Outsourced Maintenance on the Rise

Government fleet vehicle sales unsurprisingly went down during the pandemic, but it’s expected to grow this year, consistent with the larger transportation market, according to a report by GovWin from Deltek, which operates a government contracting intelligence platform.

Fleet vehicle bids decreased by 17% during 2020 but is expected to rebound in 2021 by 13.6%, according to GovWin’s Fleet Industry Analysis: Selling Vehicles, Parts and Services to State and Local Governments. The report includes comments from Mercury Associates President Paul Lauria.

Police vehicles have seen higher rates of growth over the past several years versus other vehicle types, with police vehicle bids increasing from 5.3% to 6.6% of the larger land vehicle group.

“Calls to defund the police notwithstanding, elected officials readily accede to law enforcement fleet funding requests,” Lauria commented.

The report also noted a shift away from in-house maintenance and toward outsourced maintenance. While it’s a minority of bids, GovWin noted it’s a growing trend in fleet purchasing. DIY maintenance and parts bids fell by 4% per year since 2014 while outsourced contracts grew by 5% over the same period.

“The trends shown here are easy to understand when one considers the aging of the automotive mechanic workforce and the growing technological complexity of vehicles. Many fleet owners in both the public and private sectors have no choice but to outsource more maintenance and repair work to commercial service providers,” Lauria said.

Software and location tracking solutions bids have grown for several years (minus a dip in 2020) and are expected to continue to grow incrementally.