Better Fleet: Why fleets still don't know how they benchmark

July 7, 2026

Every fleet measures performance.

Fuel economy. Vehicle availability. Collision rates. Cost per mile. Maintenance spend.

The problem is that very few fleets know whether those figures are actually good.

A vehicle costing 55p per mile to operate might sound reasonable. An availability rate of 94% might seem impressive. But without something meaningful to compare against, they're simply numbers.

As fleet operations become more complex and budgets come under greater pressure, leading operators are looking beyond internal reporting and towards benchmarking to understand how they compare with similar fleets.

Measuring performance without context

Most fleet reporting focuses on what is happening inside the business.

Managers compare this month's fuel bill with last month's, or this year's collision rate with last year's.

External benchmarking asks a different question:

How does our fleet compare with everyone else?

As Michelin Connected Fleet explains, benchmarking enables fleets to compare their operational performance against industry standards, identify gaps and focus improvement efforts where they'll have the greatest commercial impact.

"Benchmarking provides a clear focus and sets specific goals for your fleet, guiding improvement efforts in a structured way."

Fleet leaders are moving beyond internal KPIs

The strongest fleets are no longer relying solely on internal reports.

They're comparing themselves against peer organisations operating similar vehicles, duty cycles and working environments.

Geotab's benchmarking platform, for example, compares fleets with others of similar size, geography and driving patterns, helping operators understand whether fuel economy, idling, harsh driving and utilisation are genuinely competitive rather than simply improving against their own historical performance.

If another fleet operating under similar conditions is consistently achieving better results, there's probably something worth learning.

Benchmarking is becoming a competitive advantage

Benchmarking isn't simply about identifying weaknesses.

It's also about prioritising opportunities.

Lex Autolease has demonstrated how benchmarking exercises can uncover significant savings by comparing fleets against sector peers and its wider customer base.

Among the examples highlighted are:

£1.4 million potential savings for a major retailer through lower vehicle emissions, revised reimbursement rates and tighter vehicle policy.
£820,000 potential savings for a healthcare provider by improving accident management and reducing motor offence costs.
£89,000 potential savings for a transport contractor through vehicle standardisation and introducing electric vans.

As Georgina Smith, Fleet Manager at Healthcare at Home, explains:

"Because Lex Autolease has all the data, they just got on with the benchmarking. It wasn't time consuming for me at all. We now review and revisit the areas they highlighted on a regular basis."

The lesson isn't that every fleet will uncover six or seven-figure savings. It's that benchmarking often highlights opportunities that routine management reporting simply doesn't reveal.

Good benchmarking changes behaviour

Benchmarking isn't a one-off exercise.

It's an ongoing management discipline.

The Department for Transport-backed Driving for Better Business programme describes benchmarking as a continuous cycle of measuring performance, identifying gaps, implementing improvements and measuring progress again.

As campaign manager Simon Turner explains:

"There is no such thing as a perfectly run fleet. Successful fleet risk management is about constantly measuring, analysing, tweaking and monitoring."

That philosophy is beginning to spread beyond road safety into almost every area of fleet management.

In the next article, we'll look at what effective fleet benchmarking actually looks like in practice and explore how leading operators are using peer comparisons, performance data and industry benchmarks to drive measurable improvements.

More guidance in this series:

What effective fleet benchmarking actually looks like

A practical playbook for using benchmarking to improve fleet performance

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