A Study of vehicle fleet management in government institutions in Sri Lanka

Abstract

There are 322 government institutions under Sri Lankan government. More than 95% out of them have their own vehicle fleet. In their institutions, the vehicle fleets has been managed by one of commissioners, by a director or a transport officer appointed by the head of the department. Though there are large vehicle fleets belong to the government institutions, there are no proper fleet management policies required in an efficient fleet management. There are about 60% - 70% of vehicles aged over lOyears or 300,000km are used in active vehicle fleet without any proper replacement policy. This causes unnecessary repair costs and low reliability which leads to poor transport supply against demand. Due to lack of proper preventive maintenance policies, vehicle repair and maintenance costs as well as downtime costs are increased. In addition; frequent occurrence of unnecessary repairs, low fleet reliability and low usage will prevail. In recent times, the government has engaged in large scale development programs implemented through government institutions. This has increased the transport demand significantly. In order to fulfill this higher transport demand a proper vehicle fleet replacement policy, a timely preventive maintenance schedule, proper vehicle fleet data recording system and regular use of information technology should be applied to reduce the repairs and maintenance cost excessive fuel cost and the downtime. Further to above, absence of a proper vehicle fleet replacement policy, a proper preventive maintenance plan, accurate data recording system and lack of staff training facilities may cause a deficient and poor vehicle fleet management in government institutions. If immediate solutions are not found for above deficiencies in fleet management, the entire government fleet management will be in jeopardy.