A Snapshot of Geotab’s Industry Pulse Analysis

18 specific sectors to create the Fleet, Transportation and Mobility Industry Pulse Analysis. This comprehensive report summarizes the operational, business and financial impact of COVID-19.

Read the report

Key takeaways from the report

Although there was a definite impact to operations, it’s promising to see the majority of those surveyed in the fleet and mobility sectors are now back to business. Most of the respondents indicated they felt confident their companies will ultimately pull through this challenge. Some key takeaways from the report include:

 

• The fleet and mobility ecosystem has almost fully rebounded, with 80 percent reporting they’re back to work full time.
• Ninety percent of those surveyed believe their company will survive and roughly 80 percent expect to return to normal business levels by late 2020 or early 2021.
• Almost half (42 percent) of respondents felt COVID-19 significantly impacted their customer base.
• Just over half of respondents were unsure whether additional workforce reductions would be necessary in the next six months.

 

Companies are adapting to new safety measures brought on by the pandemic

Businesses and governments alike have adapted their operations in order to safely respond to the pandemic. Both public and private firms have implemented safety measures, like providing employees with personal protective equipment, creating new sanitization rules and restricting work-related travel, all in an effort to keep both employees and customers safe.

Governments are dealing with both business and operational impacts

Depending on their area of focus, government fleets have faced one of two extremes in response to the pandemic. While most police, fire, emergency medical services (EMS), Department of Transportation (DOT) and general service fleets at the state, provincial or local levels are operating at or over capacity due to new activities related to COVID-19, school buses, Departments of Education (DOE), parks and recreation have been shut down. At the federal level, fleet activities have been largely unaffected. However, a disruption in vehicle deliveries from Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM) has presented significant challenges to leasing and rental operations (GSA).

While the pandemic has forced some government staff to adapt to a work-from-home arrangement, those employees tasked with keeping essential government services open for the public have continued commuting to work. Although a short- to medium-term hiring freeze is likely, we have not seen — and do not expect to see — any government layoffs as a result of the pandemic. In the longer term, we expect government operations to return to normal, pre-COVID-19 levels.

Government must shift focus to coming budget cuts

Unsurprisingly, existing government budgets have been adversely affected due to spending freezes in the wake of COVID-19. But, perhaps a more significant concern for government agencies at all levels is the widespread expectation that upcoming FY21 budgets will decline by 10-15 percent. While this concern is primarily focused on U.S. government agencies and departments, it may very well extend globally once the full impact to government budgets is realized. This downward movement puts a renewed focus on cost-savings and ROI, which can be addressed through the use of telematics. In fact, a number of government fleets have already mandated the use of telematicsto address this issue and we expect this trend to continue well into 2021.