Delivery Vans: Right-Size Your Fleet
Consider these key questions when choosing delivery vans for your fleet.
When it comes to choosing delivery vans for fleet operations, it may be a challenge at times to select the right vehicle for the right application. Fleet professionals need to weigh a number of factors when making these decisions, including the type of goods they’ll be delivering, where deliveries will be made, cost of acquisition and ownership, as what kind of licensed drivers will be needed to operate the vehicles.
Moreover, with a growing number of electric delivery vans coming onto the market, fleet professionals need to consider whether electrification is an option and a benefit, or whether diesel or gasoline powertrains make more sense for their fleet.
David Sowers, Director of RAM Professional Operations at Stellantis North America offers fleet professionals a long list of considerations to keep in mind as they choose the right vehicles for their particular application.
These include, “the size of packages that they deliver, the weight of the packages, the type of customers that they deliver to—be that commercial, retail or both,” he says. “They also have to look at geography, which means the number of distribution points they have, along with the distances they typically travel, whether they need to fit into underground parking garages, and whether they’re delivering to metropolitan areas, or to mostly rural locations.”
Sowers explains that each fleet should have a thorough understanding of their specific needs, and of the way they prefer to operate their business. “We’re not trying to take a vehicle and make them change their operating style to fit the vehicle,” he explains. “We have to provide a vehicle that works for them.”
Different need, different fleets
To illustrate the difference between different types of delivery fleets and the reasons behind the choices they may have made when selecting their delivery vans, Sowers offers a few examples.
“When you have a company like FedEx, UPS or DHL, there’s a significant variance in the size and weight of the packages they deliver,” he says. “They tend to have a larger distribution area because they work out of central warehouses. They tend to have a mixed fleet, but they focus on a little bit larger, a little bit heavier GVWs. Sometimes they're under-utilizing that GVW, and sometimes they might be pushing the GVW, depending on the packages that they have. All of these companies deliver to both retail and commercial addresses.”
On the other hand, a company like Amazon has a similar warehousing structure, Sowers explains, but they deliver smaller and lighter packages in general, and they typically deliver to almost 100% retail addresses. “So they tend to use lighter vehicles because their packages are lighter,” Sowers says.
A third category of businesses are those that work out of bricks-and-mortar enterprises, including grocery stores and hardware stores. “Typically, they're making deliveries out of their retail locations,” Sowers adds, “so it's no longer a warehouse-type situation. It's more hyper-local, but these types of businesses don't have as many packages, and they don't have as many stops on one route.”
Don’t forget the driver
Another question these fleets need to consider, Sowers explains, is the type of driver they employ. “What type of drivers will you need?” he asks. “Are they professional drivers with certification, or are they long-term employee-type drivers?”
Companies like FedEx, UPS and DHL, he explains, typically hire professional drivers because a lot of their vehicles are heavier, which means the drivers have certain license requirements that they have to meet.
“On the other hand, companies like Amazon are not going to have a driver who starts working for them at the age of 20 and stays with them until they’re 55,” Sowers adds. “Companies like Amazon expect to have higher turnover, so they prefer to avoid higher levels of licensing requirements.”
Sowers argues that companies that are in the logistics business will have a mixed fleet with both smaller and larger vehicles, but they tend to be biased towards heavier vehicles. “They need vehicles that can handle the GVW, and they expect a longer life out of the vehicles,” he adds. “They'll operate them for a number of years, and in some cases, expect to get maybe 500,000 miles out of each vehicle. That type of durability cycle also comes along with those heavier GVWs.”
These companies rely on professional drivers who can handle trucks with larger GVWs. At the other end of the spectrum are companies like Amazon or the Postal Service, Sowers says, and they need vehicles that are easy to drive and less likely to end up damaged.
“Some of their drivers run into things, because they’re making large numbers of deliveries, backing into driveways, or up to loading docks,” he says. “So they want smaller vehicles with great visibility because they’re not using professional drivers. The employee at Ace Hardware, for example, might be stocking shelves on Tuesday and making deliveries on Wednesday.”
For these types of drivers Sowers recommends investing in fleet vehicles that are equipped with ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance System) technologies. “We offer 360-degree surround-view cameras and digital rear view mirrors, so when you don’t have a rear window [in your delivery van], you can still see what’s behind you,” he says. “In addition, front and rear parking sensors can make it easier to operate these vehicles in tight environments.”
Total cost of ownership
There are pros and cons to both smaller and larger delivery vans, and this includes the total cost of ownership: the cost of acquisition, insurance, maintenance, fuel, the wage of the driver (if they need a special license, they’ll likely need to be paid more), etc.
“There are tradeoffs,” Sowers says. “Some fleet might decide to buy a lighter vehicle, and maybe it breaks down more often because it’s constantly being pushed hard, but the repairs are less expensive than they would be for a heavier vehicle, which also tends to stay out of service for longer periods of time when it breaks down.”
An ideal mix
In the real world, the choice between large and small delivery vehicles is never black and white. Sham Ahluwalia, Director, GM Envolve Canada notes that many fleets will end up with a mixture of both. “Larger vans and transport trucks can be used to deliver significant volumes of product to a hub, but the downside is that they can’t get into underground garages and they’re less maneuverable in the city,” he says. “So if you need a vehicle that can access narrow city streets, you’ll likely add smaller more maneuverable vehicles into the mix.”
Ahluwalia says that choosing the right mix of larger and smaller delivery vehicles is a bit of a balancing act for many fleet professionals. “Once the larger volume of product has been delivered to a central location, it’s the smaller vans that will often get them to their final destination,” he says.
These smaller vans are not only more maneuverable, but they’re also more fuel-efficient, especially if they’re powered by electricity. “Electric vans are becoming a growing part of the decision-making process,” Ahluwalia explains. “We’re starting to see our customers, who already have a number of ICE products, looking for vehicles with zero emissions. We’re getting more and more questions about electrification, which tells me that there’s a shift in our industry.”
If weighing the pros and cons of all the options is enough to give you a headache, rest assured that both the OEMs, as well as the fleet management companies (if you work with one), are more than happy to walk you through the options, help you weigh the pros and cons, and guide you to a decision that will assure you have the right mix of delivery vehicles for your specific fleet needs.
