Sales of fleet management software into the utilities sector have continued to increase during 2013, reports Chevin Fleet Solutions.

The company says that a growing desire to gain greater visibility, reduce costs and promote compliance are all important factors behind the trend and points to new deals signed this year with Pike Electric, DC Water, Bell Canada, Washington Gas, Penn West, NESCO Equipment and more.

Senior Vice President of North American Sales, Ron Katz, said: “As a business, the time immediately following the credit crunch was surprisingly good for us because it caused utility fleets to look for new ways of controlling their fleet operations and we won several key deals as a result.

“As the economy has gradually stabilized, we have seen a continuation of this trend and interest in fleet management information software systems continues to increase across sectors such as water, telecoms, electric, gas and cable. Companies continue to look for ways in which they can make operational gains and we have seen a strong performance in 2013 so far as a result.”

Katz said that, in most cases, the new fleet management software was replacing either spreadsheets or old and inflexible fleet maintenance systems, so that the gains that these clients have realized from new technology were often dramatic.

He explained: “You might be the best fleet manager in the world but your effectiveness will always be limited by information systems that are restrictive and unable to provide snapshot visibility over operational and expense details. With the capabilities of modern fleet software, we find that fleet departments can become much more effective very quickly.

“This is especially true in the utilities sector where companies operate some of the most diverse and complex equipment of any road-going fleet. What modern technology delivers is both an effective means of control over operations and timely, accurate information on which to base decisions.”

Chevin’s web-based enterprise fleet management information software, FleetWave is used to manage more than 700,000 fleet vehicles around the world.