Commercial Vehicle boss Mark Lovett told What Van? that vans need to be managed more like trucks rather than like “big cars with no windows”.
For operators, keeping vehicles working is the priority and Lovett said Leaseplan’s new product, Uptime, could cut downtime by 60%.
“The industry failed to understand that immobility is critical, not just inconvenient,” he said.
Leaseplan created a dedicated five-strong CV team in October 2011 that was tasked with providing operators with specialist support and preventing vans from “falling through the slats”.
Uptime uses telematic software to download mileage data every 24 hours and give advance warning of when a vehicle event, such as a service, is due.
