For many fleet managers, collecting data is easy; the challenge is making it work for you.

In St. Johns County, Florida, the Public Works Fleet Management Division wanted to improve its management of more than 1,200 vehicles and pieces of equipment.  The inventory included everything from trucks and ATVs to heavy equipment, bookmobiles, and emergency vehicles.

Rather than starting from scratch with a new system, the county decided to connect the information it already had, improve the quality, and turn it into actionable plans.

The result has changed how St. Johns County approaches everything from preventive maintenance to vehicle replacement.

Identifying the Problem

St. Johns County's problem wasn't necessarily a lack of technology.

The county already had systems that collected information, but manual processes and fragmented data made it hard to get a complete picture of an asset.

Replacement planning could become reactive and rely too heavily on anecdotal evidence. Preventive maintenance compliance was inconsistent. Missed services could eventually turn into unexpected breakdowns, corrective repairs, and additional downtime.

For a fleet trying to become more data-driven, the first step is asking what decisions you currently struggle to make.

1. Can you quickly identify which vehicles are becoming expensive to keep?
2. Can you tell which vehicles are overdue for preventive maintenance?
3. Can you easily provide leadership with the information supporting next year's replacement request?

From there, St. Johns County built on systems it was already using.

They combined its Trimble Cityworks work-order environment with Esri's ArcGIS Enterprise, then connected additional fleet information sources.

That included FuelMaster for odometer readings, Verizon Connect for vehicle location and mileage information, NAPA parts information for inventory and costs, and a VIN-decoding connection that can populate standardized vehicle information.

According to an analysis cited in Esri's case study, moving to a new fleet management system would have increased annual per-user costs by 177%. The county determined it could achieve approximately 95% of the functionality it wanted by customizing its existing Cityworks environment and using ArcGIS.

Make Data Collection Part of the Routine

A dashboard is only as useful as the quality of the information feeding it.

Much of the information needed to evaluate an asset is captured through processes employees are already performing.

For example, mileage can enter the system when an operator fuels a vehicle. Condition assessments can be completed when vehicles come into the shop for service. Vehicle age comes from information established when the asset enters the fleet.

County officials explained the process during a 2026 budget session, noting that their information systems staff largely manage the information and the systems that collect it rather than manually entering every data point.

A fleet can design an impressive measurement system, but if employees must do extra work, it is unsustainable.

Where possible, data collection should happen alongside the work the fleet is already doing.

We Have the Data, Now What?

St. Johns County developed a Vehicle Condition Index (VCI) that converts several pieces of vehicle information into a standardized score.

Each vehicle receives a score from 0 to 100 based on four factors:

• Vehicle condition
• Odometer reading
• Vehicle age
• Corrective maintenance costs

Each category can contribute up to 25 points. Preventive maintenance and fuel costs are excluded from the corrective maintenance portion of the score.

Instead of looking at mileage, age, maintenance costs, and physical condition separately, managers can see an overall indicator of fleet health.

That makes way for consistency. But first, you need established thresholds on what those scores mean.

At St. John’s County, vehicles scoring below 60 can be flagged as potential replacement candidates. Units falling below 50 receive greater priority when the county develops its replacement budget.

This creates a dependable, repeatable process that supports informed decisions.

The VCI gives St. Johns County's Office of Management and Budget a standardized way to compare those requests rather than relying entirely on which department makes the strongest argument.

"The vehicle replacement program has enabled the Office of Management and Budget to get an objective and data-driven analysis of the county's fleet," OMB Director Wade Schroeder said of the process.

Using the Information You Collected

Those scores can now be used as a management tool.

Managers can filter vehicles by department and condition-score thresholds, see maintenance compliance, review costs, and identify vehicles requiring attention.

Automated reporting reduces the need to manually assemble the same information every time leadership asks about fleet conditions.

They also facilitate long-term planning and expensing.

During the county's FY 2027 budget discussions, the information helps them understand vehicle conditions and anticipate future fleet budget needs.

The integrated system also lets St. Johns County notify departments when preventive maintenance is due and alert them when vehicles become overdue.

The county has gone a step further by tying compliance to fuel access.

The county can disable fuel keys for vehicles overdue for required service, forcing units into the shop rather than allowing overdue PMs to continue indefinitely.

They also introduced a centralized maintenance scheduling application in 2026.

Employees can select a vehicle, choose an available service time, describe an issue, and even submit notes or photos. The application integrates with Outlook calendars and automated notifications.

A Measure of Success

St. Johns County's overall fleet vehicle condition score increased from 63% to 81% year over year.

The county has also seen lifetime costs for retired vehicles trend downward, indicating that vehicles are increasingly being replaced before high repair costs associated with aging assets accumulate.

Automated maintenance alerts have helped improve PM compliance, while reports and dashboards have reduced manual reporting. The county also reported improvements in technician workflow and productivity.

Technology matters, but outcomes are the real measure of success.