The successful negotiation between a railway operator and a leasing company represents the key to fleet management optimization, allowing any company to benefit from the advantages brought by rail transport. In order to ensure business efficiency and profitability for the services provided by railway operators, it is necessary to elaborate and implement projects for fleet management improvement.
The liberalisation of rail freight transport generates more pressure on the financial results of railway companies. In this context, fleet management becomes a vital instrument for measuring rolling stock performance.
The management of the daily operations of freight cars requires high-quality services and specialized logistics knowledge. The efficient management of a rolling stock fleet requires the implementation of technological systems that can provide real-time information related to freight train tracking in order to obtain an efficient planning system. The data is consolidated and dynamic in order to facilitate the use of the fleet management system for the customer. Suppliers provide support for train maintenance, on-line registration for every rail car and reports that help reduce the overall exploitation costs and increase the level of use.
Rolling stock leasing companies should implement this type of systems because an efficient fleet management helps improve customer services. This way, the information provided can be used to improve the maintenance process, reducing the time factor and increasing the availability of the entire rolling stock fleet.
The fleet management systems keep an inventory of the vehicles and provide forecasts on the operation costs and the intelligent use of any financing methods.
The installation of fleet management systems will provide a real support in solving any vehicle malfunctions and will also provide information about the number of journeys, the train’s distance and average speed, punctuality, energy consumption, position, technical malfunctions and time necessary for repairs, if necesary.
The advantages brought by these systems include: maintenance cost reduction, improvement of logistics activities, information update and management, increase in rolling stock availability. All these help maintain the existing customers and satisfy the demands of new customers.
The companies that supply these systems support operators in all the aspects related to fleet management. The services provided include a package of programs for vehicle tracking, statistical report elaboration, based on analyses concerning the activities performed by every vehicle (rail car, train). These programs also keep track of all the mechanical and technical malfunctions and provide information about leasing and sub-leasing, commercial information and necessary repairs, including information about the repairs made until that specific time (the history of the respective rail car). This information is safe, fast, flexible and constantly updated, in order to improve the services provided for customers. This helps create competition between suppliers and increases competition between leasing companies and the railway operators who need support in order to provide safe and efficient transport services.
For instance, when a company wishes to lease freight cars, the fleet management system help improve the process. However, until this could be made possible, the leasing company requires technical support for the freight cars, which means including the technical information in the specific vehicle tracking systems, elaborating a draft plan based on the customer’s demands, elaborating a program for preventive maintenance and consultative support for the operations planned based on the leasing activities.
Practically, the fleet management system generates benefits such as: return on investment increase, elimination of fleet inefficiency and improvement of customer relations, extended use of internal resources, supply of information related to the state of the railway vehicles, including daily updates concerning the available freight cars and the ones that have already been loaded. By developing an efficient fleet management system, leasing companies, rail freight operators and customers will help increase competition and improve railway business.
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