Managing and maintaining a fleet of pool vehicles can be a challenging and time-consuming activity. As your fleet grows, so does the number of keys you need to keep track of. The last thing you want to be doing is wasting your valuable time on key management - handing them over at the beginning of a booking and chasing them down when they go missing.
Despite many advances in technology, we still see organisations using outdated fleet management and key management practices. But if this sounds like you, don’t worry. Smartrak has award-winning solutions that will help you better manage both your vehicles and their keys.
It’s not uncommon for someone within an organisation to act a designated Key Warden. This person is responsible for maintaining vehicle bookings, handing out the correct keys, and hunting down keys that haven’t been returned.
Often this task is allocated to an office secretary or executive assistant who might have a wide range of additional tasks to perform. Keeping on top of multiple bookings and tracking down misplaced keys can eat up their time, as well as the time of whoever needs the vehicle next. This is especially problematic if keys have made their way to a different department, building or all the way across campus.
Some organisations don’t even manage their keys through a designated key warden. In these situations, keys are left on hooks or stored in a central location. Individual staff members are responsible for ensuring they collect the correct keys and return them promptly at the end of their booking.
If other staff members don’t know who used the vehicle last, they can waste valuable time asking around for keys if they weren’t returned. Even worse, if someone leaves the office without first returning the key, they effectively tie up the vehicle for the rest of the day, preventing anyone else from using it. Staff would then be required to source alternative and more expensive means of transport.
If you manage a fleet that is spread out over multiple parking areas such as a college campus, there is no guarantee the keys will be nearby. If the Key Warden or (key hook) is in a different location, staff will be required to visit in order to collect and drop-off keys.
Such a detour could result in a significant drain on staff time. Staff may even request longer bookings to compensate for time lost during key pickup and drop-off, reducing overall vehicle availability.
Smartrak’s Mobility Portfolio offers several innovative solutions that solve these issues, helping you save time and money.
PoolCar, our web-based pool booking software, empowers staff to make and cancel their vehicle bookings. Staff can easily view which vehicles are available and suitable for any required trips. Furthermore, PoolCar comes with a comprehensive reporting suite that will improve your fleet’s utilization. In numerous deployments this improvement has resulted in reductions in fleet size of around 10%.
Our KeyMaster key cabinet also integrates into PoolCar. This means you can store the keys at the vehicle parking site, eliminating the need for unnecessary detours to collect and return keys. And because returning the key is a required part of the booking process, it ensures that keys will always be available for the next person.
Alternatively, our Keyless Entry solution could be more appropriate to your situation, particularly if vehicles are not held in a central location. With Keyless Entry, access to the vehicle is gained via an RFID card or the driver’s smartphone, with the keys left securely locked inside the vehicle. Keyless Entry also seamlessly integrates with PoolCar for complete oversight of vehicle operations.
