Start with cost per mile
The problem
“I don’t know which trips make money.”
You can name your van payment and roughly your fuel spend without looking anything up. Cost per mile takes an afternoon, and it is the number most fleet decisions need: whether a contract clears its own cost, what to charge for a private trip, and whether the next van pays for itself.
Take twelve months, one vehicle at a time:
(payment or depreciation + insurance + fuel + maintenance + tires + registration) ÷ miles driven
Do it per vehicle, because a fleet average hides the van that costs the most to run. Count maintenance as what each breakdown actually cost, including the tow and the routes you covered some other way, not just the shop invoice.
Count what can run tomorrow
The problem
“Vans sit idle, or the wrong van goes.”
“It’s hard to keep track of maintenance.”
The number that matters is how many vehicles can run a route tomorrow morning. It is always lower than the number on your insurance policy: subtract whatever is in the shop, waiting on a part, or carrying a lift your drivers have stopped trusting.
Keep spares against that count. A spare costs its payment and insurance and burns no fuel while it sits. A missed route costs the trips on it, the on-time record your accounts judge you on, and sometimes the facility, which called another provider at 6am. To size your spares, count how many mornings in the last six months started a driver short.
Then stop losing vans to surprises. Book preventive maintenance as standing appointments in your lightest block of the week, a quarter ahead, instead of whenever a van happens to be free. Put inspections, registrations, insurance renewals and driver credentials on the same calendar, each with its own lead time: a medical card might take a week, and broker re-credentialing can take months. An expired credential parks a van as surely as a breakdown does.
Buy or replace on the numbers
The problem
“I don’t know when to add or replace a van.”
When volume is up and you are asked to take on more trips, the instinct is to buy a van. Ask three questions first, in this order:
You are asked to take on more trips
Question 1
Are your vans of that type booked solid?
Stretcher trips need stretcher vans. Check the type the new trips need.
If no: Take the trips. The vans you have for that type have room for them.
Question 2
Have you already tightened the routes on those vans?
Trips per vehicle per day, against what a well-planned van runs
If no: Plan them better first. Tighter routes fit more trips at no cost.
Question 3
Would another van of that type clear its cost per mile on its first month of trips?
The trips it would actually run, not the contract you were promised
If no: Wait. A van bought on promised volume is a payment with no trips.
If it clears: Buy a van of that type
It pays for itself on real trips, not promised ones.
The first two cost nothing to check. Start with the type of trip. A request for more ambulatory trips is a different question from one for more stretcher trips. If your vans of that type still have room in their schedule, take the trips on the vans you have. If stretcher requests keep outrunning your stretcher vans, the next vehicle is a stretcher van, not one more of what you already have.
If they are booked solid, check the routes before the fleet. Across the fleets we see, a vehicle runs about eight trips a day on a six-day week. If yours run five, another van spreads the same trips over another payment, and better planning would have closed the gap for nothing.
Only then ask whether another van of that type clears its cost per mile on the trips it would actually run in its first month, not on a contract you have been promised.
Replacing works the same way. A paid-off van feels free, but its repair bills climb just as it becomes less reliable. Track its repair cost per mile over the last six months against the payment and insurance per mile of the van that would replace it. When the first passes the second, the old van has become the expensive one.