Why we put 2,000 miles of canals, rivers and locks in our GPS system.

If you talk to Ian Jarvis, Financial Controller of Canal & River Trust, the charity responsible for managing inland waterways in England and Wales, about the importance of fleet management software, he will inevitably mention how it is contributing to his organisation's efficiency drive.

Since installing Navman Wireless vehicle tracking across its fleet of 420 vehicles and 217 boats, which make up the front line maintenance force working on 2,000 miles of canals, rivers and locks. Canal & River Trust has reduced its operational vehicle mileage by over a million miles, saving 78,000 litres of fuel and 206 tonnes of carbon, not to mention improving driver behaviour and safety.

These are the kind of metrics that everyone, particularly those charged with managing the finances of an organisation, like to see, and Navman certainly delivered the ROI Jarvis had hoped for after investing in a fleet tracking system.

The Financial Controller of Canal & River Trust, however, has been equally impressed with Navman's "adaptability" and "flexibility" in making their fleet management system fit for purpose for the ??160 million-a-year charity.

"The tracking and the performance data was the most important component for us.??That's what we wanted to focus on," Jarvis said. "But we also needed something that we could work with and use for our purposes. We felt Navman was an organisation we could work with. ??There seemed to be flexibility there to a degree that maybe there wasn't in other fleet tracking suppliers."

Jarvis cites Navman's ability to integrate Canal & River Trust's extensive and unique map of 2,000 miles of canals, rivers and locks into their GPS fleet tracking system as a prime example of what he calls 'customer focused customisation.'

"We're a very geographically organised business and we use mapping extensively in the business so we've actually brought into the Navman maps, all of our canals, all of our locks, all of our bridges." Jarvis said.??"They've all been put into Navman's maps so that we can see not only is a vehicle on the A46 but that it is near to lock 27. The fact that a vehicle is on the A46 means nothing to us. ??If it's near lock 27, that means everything.

"And in terms of being able to deploy vehicles accurately and quickly, this customisation is very important, because we won't have an emergency on the A46, it will be at lock 27, so again we can use that data to deploy people and that was always very much the long term aim of this. We wanted a fleet management software that meant something to us."