Corporate & Business · NPO & Social Impact · Fleet & Logistics
A 37.1% reduction that moves the total by four tenths of a percent
Vehicle rentals are 70.2% of this cost base and contractual; fuel is 27.9% at pump price; card administration, where the large percentage landed, is 1.2%. The composition of the baseline is published before the percentages, because otherwise the two figures look like a contradiction.
- 1.4%
- concluded core cost reduction
- 37.1%
- card administration, 1.2% of the base
- 230,000 km
- recorded vehicle movement reconstructed
- 2.3%
- best market-test opportunity, modelled
Proof context: A geographically dispersed leased fleet across seven operating locations
The situation
Seven locations, fifteen vehicles, five different cost behaviours
A geographically dispersed organisation ran a leased fleet supported by fuel cards, tolls, insurance, telematics and traffic-fine administration. Each of those arrived as its own invoice from its own counterparty, and each had been reviewed, if at all, on its own terms.
KuTh treated them as one fleet-cost architecture. The reconstruction covered 1,791 fleet-card transactions across 15 vehicles, invoice-level rental and fuel data, seven operating locations and more than 230,000 km of recorded vehicle movement.
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What the core cost base is actually made of
Scroll table sideways →
| Component | Share of baseline | Behaviour |
|---|---|---|
| Vehicle rentals | 70.2 | The dominant fixed and contractual cost. |
| Fuel | 27.9 | The primary variable operating cost. |
| Card administration | 1.2 | Recurring account and card overhead. |
| Interest | 0.4 | A financing and settlement charge, subject to contract test. |
| Transaction charges | 0.3 | Usage-linked fleet-card fees. |
Tolls and exceptional event costs sit outside this baseline. They are usage and event driven, and were not repriced through the concluded saving model.
Why a 37.1% reduction produces a 1.4% result
Card administration fell by 37.1%. It is 1.2% of the core cost base, so that strong percentage moves the total by roughly four tenths of one percent.
Seven-tenths of this fleet's cost is contractual rental and most of the rest is fuel at pump price. A review of this category cannot produce a large headline unless it changes the vehicle population or breaks the lease — neither of which was in scope, and neither of which would have been free.
What KuTh did
Reconstruct at vehicle level, then separate fixed from variable
- Rebuilt costs per vehicle. Fixed and variable charges separated, so that a rental decision and a fuel decision could be evaluated independently rather than through one blended cost per kilometre.
- Tested inland fuel-grade usage. An analytical and operating change rather than a negotiation — the fuel component reduced without altering the vehicle population.
- Renegotiated rental and card charges. With the incumbent, where the contractual position allowed. Card administration carried the largest proportional movement.
- Market-tested an alternative provider. A further opportunity of up to 2.3% was demonstrated against the same core baseline. It is reported separately and is not presented as implemented.
- Reviewed the control layer. Telematics, traffic-fine administration and insurance-linked controls, reported as operating-control outcomes rather than converted into a percentage.
Results
Concluded, modelled and unquantified, kept apart
Scroll table sideways →
| Result stream | Status | Treatment |
|---|---|---|
| Incumbent rental and card repricing | Concluded / negotiated | Included in the concluded result — a 1.4% reduction in the defined core annualised base. |
| Inland fuel-grade optimisation | Concluded operating change | Included. The analysed annual fuel component reduced 1.3% with no change to the vehicle population. |
| Card administration | Concluded / negotiated | 37.1% reduction within the negotiated charge structure; rental and card changes together moved that block 1.5%. |
| Alternative provider comparison | Market-tested / modelled | Up to 2.3% further opportunity. Shown separately, excluded from the concluded saving. |
| Interest-charge review | Potential recovery item | Not quantified as an achieved result, and not presented as one. |
| Telematics and traffic-fine controls | Implemented control structure | Reported as an operating-control outcome, with no percentage attached. |
What this engagement is useful for
Knowing where the money is not
A fleet review is often commissioned on the assumption that fuel cards and administration hide material value. Here they did contain proportionally large inefficiency, and correcting it still barely moved the total, because the structure of the cost base would not allow otherwise.
That is a legitimate and useful finding. It directs the next decision at the rental contract and the vehicle population, which is where seventy per cent of the cost sits, rather than at another round of invoice-level review that cannot pay for itself.
Supporting documents