Fleet Management may seem like a marginal, technical issue for humanitarians, But not only is fleet a key enabler for operations, the way we manage fleet tells us a lot about the issues facing the humanitarian industry.
Rob McConnell has worked with most of the major humanitarian players advising them on how to manage their fleet of vehicles. In this conversation Rob and Lars Peter explore the way humanitarians manage fleet and also try to figure out how and why a huge number of new, yet 40 years old trucks, made it from Norway to Southern Africa in 2003-04.
Transcript
This is not a conversation about cars and Rob McConnell is not a petrol head, or even a car guy. He is one of the world's leading experts on fleet management in the humanitarian sector. Listening back to the conversation, two things struck me. One, how can we as an industry ever hope to be able to measure impact if we can't even figure out how to get sensible metrics out of how we manage our fleet. And secondly, it is striking just how many issues that have absolutely nothing to do with the populations we serve that influenced the way we dimension and use our fleets. It is often driven by ego and visibility, rather than operational requirements. I hope you will enjoy the conversation and that you find it a useful perspective on our dear industry. And if you happen to be stuck in traffic in a big white Land Cruiser somewhere in Kampala, Abidjan, I hope at least the aircon is working and that you're comfortable. Enjoy the conversation.
Rob McConnell, welcome to Trumanitarian. You are a self-proclaimed world leading expert on vehicle and fleet management in the humanitarian sector. But I think, let's explore that. And maybe I'll just refer to as Mr. Fleet for this interview. Is that alright with you?
Rob McConnell:Yes, I think self-proclaimed world leading expert is a little bit too grand.
Lars Peter Nissen:Okay. But it's a good working hypothesis, I think. So let's see whether we still think you are that once we're done with this interview. You worked... On a more serious note, you worked with, I think, most of the major agencies in the humanitarian world helping advising on how to manage fleet. Why don't you tell us a bit about what is it you do for this organisation? What is it Mr. Fleet actually does?
Rob McConnell:Yes, I think Mr. Fleet is more appropriate. Thanks, Lars Peter. So fleet really is a sort of... a rather necessary evil. Organisations don't really like fleets, but fleets are essential for being able to deliver the mandate, whatever it happens to be. Whether it's doing field assessments, monitoring progress, delivering food, delivering relief items, whether it be light vehicles (and when I mean, light vehicles, I'm talking about, you know, the ubiquitous Land Cruiser. When I talk about heavy vehicles, we're talking about, you know, trucks for delivery of cargo and more transportation of people)... So, fleets are... as I say, most organisations consider them as sort of a, you know, a necessary evil, and cause lots of problems. But it's also regarded as something very demeaning and low-level, and therefore, agencies don't really, in my view, manage fleets effectively and historically have not done so with a few notable exceptions. So what I've been doing in about the last 20 years is working with agencies, helping them to understand the implications of their fleet, and how they can integrate the operation of the fleet more effectively within the organization's, you know, objectives and how to deliver their strategy to realise their strategy and mandate and objectives.
Lars Peter Nissen:So what are the main issues you pick up? What is it we're doing wrong?
Rob McConnell:Well, it sounds a bit flippant, but most things wrong, you know? I think we... Having looked at fleet, I think we can divide it into three sort of essential areas where I think we should be concerned. And this is evident when you look at how fleets are managed in the commercial sector. I mean, there is such a disparity between the practice in commercial sector and practice in the aid and development sector, and we can learn a lot from the private sector. But the the areas, of course, are: Cost and efficiency. Vehicles are expensive. Operating them, you know, is a huge recurring cost. Then, how do we... So my idea is how do we use those expensive resources more effectively. But also, they are... our vehicle fleets, after travel and facilities, represent for some agencies, the biggest single contributor to their level of emissions and CO2 and harmful emissions and so on. You know, I think everybody's increasingly aware of the environmental impact of fleets. And thirdly, but perhaps most importantly, is the road safety aspect.
Lars Peter Nissen:Try to make that concrete for us. Tell us what does that look like in a country? In a specific operation?
Rob McConnell:It's... agencies are super sensitive about this, Lars Peter, so I can't really... I think... And I... They are super sensitive and I think we have to be a little are a bit cautious. But I've worked with... As you've said at the beginning of this interview, I've worked with lots of agencies. And I know of one UN agency working in one country where they had a particularly bad year, which resulted in, I think it was one staff member, one of the (you know, I'm talking about death, I'm not even talking about serious injury here)... There was death of one staff member of this agency, and 16 other road users were killed or fatally injured. And that, I think, from the other experience I have, is a sort of representative of that ratio, the imbalance that the injury frequency. Another one, I worked with the organisation in India, and at first they said they... I was there for a long time. And they said that they didn't have road traffic crashes. And I said that that's simply not possible. They simply had no records. And I think there's a subtle difference between not recording them, and not having them. And in fact, again, once we really dug down and dug deep it was horrible. The huge numbers of other road users being killed or injured by vehicles belonging to this agency. As I say, I'm really cautious about naming the names.
Lars Peter Nissen:No, I fully understand that. And of course, the purpose here is not to hang any particular agency out to dry, but to highlight a systemic issue, and I think what's interesting about what you say is that even though you're given a flavour of what it looks like, I think you would argue that this applies to most of the humanitarian actors.
Rob McConnell:Absolutely. Yes, indeed. And I think that I think the shape that well, because as I say, I... it's not that I'm scared to name the agencies. I don't want to name the agencies, because exactly as you say, it's an endemic problem, that all of the agencies are effectively the same. And if I were to mention one or the other, it would imply that they were better or worse, but they're very few agencies that are taking road safety seriously.
Lars Peter Nissen:So let's pick up on the first issue you brought up around cost efficiency and measuring. Give us an example of the most improved performance or management of a fleet you've seen after you have worked with an agency?
Rob McConnell:Well, actually, if I may, I'll just take that back one step, because in a way, I'm an accidental humanitarian. I... Coming to work in the aid development sector or workers humanitarian was not a career choice. As we see many people nowadays are taking that as a path. I found myself working in a large scale emergency, working with the Red Cross. And at that time, the organisation, the operation, it was around the Kosovo response in the Balkans. And there was a combined Red Cross fleet. And I arrived there almost by accident. And through another range of rather funny, unpredictable circumstances, I was asked to take over the management of this rather large fleet. We had about 40 trucks, probably getting on for 200 light vehicles, and a large vehicle workshop. And this didn't present to me as a massive problem to take responsibility for that, or take over the management of it, because I just said, Well, you know, show me the guidelines, what are the standard operating procedures we have? And I will implement them. And was this was rather sort of awkward silence. And they said, Well, we don't have any. And what occurred to me then was, you know, we see, in the humanitarian space here, everybody is performance driven. We... The agencies receive money from donors, we have to report back. Reporting is so deeply ingrained in our culture. Everything is reported, we gather data, we analyse data, we compile data, and we submit that to whoever, whether it be the donor or be out to HQ, or so on. And we're supposedly using this to demonstrate our ability, measuring our performance, being able to demonstrate that we improve our performance on receipt of funds and so on. And I thought, Well hang on a minute. We're operating this enormous fleet and there is no basic data capturing method. So how much is this fleet costing to operate? How much are we spending on fuel? And I just thought there was... there seems to be this chasm between this idea that we capture data and monitor everything and we can capture our performance and persuade people that we're doing well, yet we're not even able to capture the basic metrics of operating a vehicle fleet, which actually are incredibly simple. It's number of vehicles, number of kilometres, number of litres of fuel, and then we move into some more essential detail. But... And I was finding out even capturing this. And this made me think, Well, if we can't capture the most basic metrics, the most basic data, and understand that and use that to adjust our performance, how can we persuade people that we are improving our performance or having impact in more conceptual or qualitative areas of our work, you know, we are improving the life of our beneficiaries? How? On what basis? How is that calculated? So as I say, I just have to see, if you can't count fleet, you can't measure fleet, I'm really dubious that you can really measure your performance in any other area.
Lars Peter Nissen:It's such an interesting topic to discuss, right? Because for most of us, fleet, it's invisible, you jump into the Land Cruiser, you go to the field, it's great. You love your Old 13-seater or whatever it is, you have some great experiences in them. But it... actually, digging into it gives you a cross section of all of the problems we as a sector have. I was thinking when you were talking about traffic death of humanitarians and then the people that unfortunately are killed by humanitarians in vehicles. Think about how much energy we spent on talking about violent deaths as a result of conflict, people getting shot to people getting kidnapped. Of course, these are extremely important issues. And rightly, we have spent a lot of money and effort on getting better at managing security in that sense. Why is that not the case with road safety?
Rob McConnell:This... it's a really important question. It's a really interesting question. And I really don't know what the answer is. You know, in a way, as you say, I think, you know, post Iraq, post Baghdad, you know, the huge explosion there, that really transformed the way, particularly the UN, but then there tends to be this knock on effect with other agencies, the impact of terrorist threat and security. And since then, the creation of UNDSS and so on, literally billions and billions have been spent to protect, to mitigate risk, mitigate the threat of terrorist attack and so on. But actually, when we look at the dat (which UNDSS do collect on an annual basis in a report that the Secretary General delivers to the General Assembly) most years, there are more deaths and serious injuries as a result of road traffic accidents than there are of any other violent attack or kidnapping or whatever it happens to be. And how much money has been spent on road traffic... you know, on the mitigation of road traffic crashes? It's a tiny, tiny percentage. But your question is really, why is this? And I think that there's a sort of general acceptance that, you know, some people call what I will call a road traffic crash, some people will call it an accident. An accident implies it's God's will. It's somebody else's fault. It just happened. I mean, they're not. Road traffic crashes are preventable. They have lots of science behind this. I was going on a long assessment mission for a very large agency and I had to undergo a medical and all this jazz before going and I had a briefing with the doctor, actually, the senior doctor at the agency. And I was waiting for my appointment, and I had my blood tests and all this sort of inoculations and so on. And I'm sitting in this waiting room to see the doctor, and I'm just looking around myself, and I'm seeing all these warnings about you know, safe sex, don't expose yourself, you know, make sure you take your anti malaria prophylactics and so on. And I went in there and I went out, I sat with a doctor, I said, Doctor, I'm going on a three month mission into several different countries that is going to involve lots of travelling. I said, What is the biggest risk that I face? And he said, Without question, travelling in a vehicle. That is when you're most exposed. And I said, Well, you've got saying... you've got a poster outside saying I should use a condom and practice safe sex. I can choose whether or not to have sex. I can't choose whether or not to travel in a vehicle. And what are you doing to encourage me and your other staff to mitigate risk? You know, people drive too fast, people drive at night, people drink and drive. We know this happens. We see behaviour change. That people feel they're in a different environment, therefore are more happy to accept a degree of risk. Why aren't you warning staff I'm far more likely to have a road traffic crash than I am to have catch some other transmissible disease.
Lars Peter Nissen:Let's talk a bit about another point you brought up, namely climate change, and the choice of vehicles of the sector. I mean, we all like the big white Lan Cruiser. I think, if you've worked in this business, there's a certain joy of driving to a beautiful landscape in a highly comfortable car like that. But you have a problem with that?
Rob McConnell:Yeah, yeah. I mean, I... I'm not a petrol head. I'm not particularly into cars, you know, a per se. I... my own particular car I don't really... I don't have any attachment to it. I do, however, do like tha iconic, you know, the Toyota Land Cruiser and so on. It's a great vehicle, and so on. However, you know, it's probably one of the least environmentally friendly vehicles I can think of. You know, it's got this great big 4.2 litres, straight-six diesel engine. And we as agencies buy the version that has absolutely no emission controls on it at all. And in fact, rather ironically, in agencies that have exemptions and privileges, are offering importing these highly polluting vehicles into countries that do actually have environmental regs, but we use our exemptions and privileges to get round that which I think is slightly a little bit...
Lars Peter Nissen:Unethical maybe?
Rob McConnell:Unethical! Thank you for the prompt. Yes, indeed, unethical. Yeah, I mean... you know, after... Travel is just huge for our agency and if we're looking at how is our environmental footprint created, how is it composed, travel by far is the greatest unit. We've got stuff flying about all over the world all the time. Then, of course, there are the facilities. You know, we've got offices and warehouses and stuff like that, and they, I think, have fairly significant impact. But then there are agencies with these large fleets and probably those agents who have the large fleets, the vehicle fleet does represent the third single largest contributor to the organization's environmental footprint. And at the same time, we've got pledges, commitments and activities to carbon neutrality, improving our environmental performance. But when I look at the vehicle fleet, I do not see any activity that is taking this seriously. I do not see any planning on behalf of the fleet managers, the agencies, to actively address this. Now, there are some very practical challenges. You know, you can't... in many countries, you can't buy an electric vehicle, in many of the countries in which we operate. I mean, if you're in Nairobi, if you go round down to the Toyota shop, you can't buy a Prius there. You can't. They don't sell them. Because they don't support them, and there's not warranty. So there are limitations on the accessibility to the sorts of vehicles that now have lower emissions. But what we can do, (and there are some agencies that are actively trying to do this, I have to say MSF, case in point)... They're trying to limit their use of heavy duty four by fours, and only use those for tough field missions, and use smaller, lighter town cars for just travelling... that inevitable travelling around town.
Lars Peter Nissen:I guess there's also an aspect of visibility. I mean, it's great branding. It looks fantastic. And you can plaster your logo over it. And I mean...
Rob McConnell:Yeah, this... There's the... we have... I'm not quite sure where we differentiate between visibility and ego here. Yes, I would agree that vehicles are very often the most visible physical manifestation of an agency's presence in a country. You know, there might be a, you know, a refugee camp away, and refugee camps, almost by definition, hidden away in a distant remote location. But you see these great big white vehicles rushing around town emblazoned with the logo of the organisation. And many people think that this logo, this blue logo plastered on the side of the vehicle is extremely important for the visibility of the organisation. True, but I think there's other aspects of this. I mean, poor behaviour in a vehicle with a great logo on it is also very negative visibility. But also I think there is this kind of not only competitiveness between agencies, but also the ego of the staff themselves. And what I mean by that is, we've done a number of projects in the past where we've tried to combine vehicle fleets so that if there is a meeting at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, for example, or the Ministry of Health, rather than representatives of six different agencies all driving to the ministry in their own personal vehicle, we've said, Why don't you all go in one vehicle or go in a minibus or go into vehicles? One of the biggest challenge... And we have demonstrated this, that we could reduce reduce fleet size by 30% using this... if there were a good sharing mechanism (there has to be some tools behind it to make that work)... But to... we could reduce fleet size by 30%. Do you know what the biggest single pushback we've gotten? Visibility. How will people know it's our agency going? And I think that is... this is where I talk about the visibility-ego thing, where do we differentiate? And I think that is a bit of a lame excuse, because I think people like to be able to have that great big white car sitting at their disposal. 'And if I can't plan to go with my colleague from the other agency, then I've got the car waiting at my disposal. It's more convenient me. And quite frankly, you know, I'm the representative, I'm the country director and, you know, this gives me the rights or the entitlement.' Or 'I'm a senior programme officer. I have the right or the entitlement to have a vehicle available at my disposal.' Which I think is scandalous, actually. I think it's absolutely scandalous. And when we've when we've done these fleet sharing projects, I think we've got two battles there. One is the individual. 'Yes, of course, I'd rather have the vehicle standing there available for me at any time I care to get up and go and get driving it.' But I think the bigger failing is management. Because if we see, from these pilot programme projects, that such significant savings can be made, It should be mandated. And that's a management, a senior management, issue. And and I think we're drawing closer and closer to this. I mean, there's lots of discussion. You know, different agencies, the UN, NGOs, and so on, are all looking to try to come up with some Uber style car service. But we're a long, long way from that in reality.
Lars Peter Nissen:So your basic message is that we grossly mismanaged this key asset. We simply don't know how much money it costs, we don't optimise the way that they're used often because of ego, or needs for agency visibility. We say we are in favour of thinking about our carbon footprint, but our choice of vehicles definitely doesn't show that. And thirdly, we seem to have a big massive blind spot when it comes to the dangers of driving these vehicles and the costs of human life associated with that both for the populations we serve in the countries we operate, but also for our own staff.
Rob McConnell:I agree all those points. We could be much more cost effective, we could be far more environmentally friendly and we could greatly reduce the number of death, of injuries, to our own staff and to other road users if this fleet were managed more effectively.
Lars Peter Nissen:Fantastic. So that's a that's a great baseline to have for the second part of our interview, where we have agreed that we will talk about the work you did in southern Africa. 2OO3, 2OO4 of I'm not mistaken...
Rob McConnell:Correct. 2OO3 was when it really kicked off. Yeah.
Lars Peter Nissen:So explain to me how it in any way makes sense to take 120 vehicles or something. It's 120, 130 vehicles... Ship them from Norway to Southern Africa, together with a massive team of Norwegians for maintenance. And I should mention that these vehicles originally came to Norway as part of the bloody Marshall aid after the Second World War. How does that in any way make sense with everything you just told me?
Rob McConnell:Yeah, it's very interesting project that. This was when the Norwegian Red Cross, in support to the International Federation of Red Cross with whom I was working at the time, came up with this plan to use these trucks to deliver food in southern Africa during what was called the Southern Africa Food Security Crisis. In that time, I think as you say, it was 2OO3. And there was food insecurity in... I think the country we're really focused on were in souther-... It was Lesotho, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Zambia. Those are really the countries of focus. And sort of scheme was dreamt up by the head... the head of the international department in Norwegian Red Cross in Oslo, and the the emergency response team in Geneva. And it was the idea that... because it was a combined operation, actually, because an agreement was signed with the World Food Programme. And so the the plan was that World Food Programme would provide food and Red Cross would provide transport. This was the model.
Lars Peter Nissen:And to be honest with you, i It seems to me like the ultimate perversion of everything we just talked about, right? I mean, they're old... It... I mean, what is the justification of... I mean, the cost of getting those vehicles down there, the cost of operating vehicles that are 60 years old... I mean, how can that in any... I mean, I'm probably overlooking something. But how can that be justified?
Rob McConnell:Well, I think another important aspect you have to take into consideration is that, you know, particularly South Africa has a very vibrant and flourishing transport industry.
Lars Peter Nissen:And these are not countries in conflict. It's not like you're being shot at right now. It's the... some of them are fairly well developed economically and have good infrastructure and there you have six wheelers from the Second World War.
Rob McConnell:Yes, indeed. I mean, these these M6 trucks were, as you say, probably most of them were built in the early 60s. They'd been sitting, they had been... some... most of them had never been used, they were shipped to Norway as part of the Marshall Marshall plan, had been sitting in storage, most of them had not done really any distance at all, so they were effectively 40 year old, unused trucks. Very robust, very interesting trucks, but nevertheless, 40 year old trucks. And I mean, I do understand completely, you know, that is a challenging question. And I think that really, there were, again, opportunities and egos working, then that made this happen. I mean, this is... the way that the Red Cross operates, the International Federation of the Red Cross, is that, when it sees... when there is a particular crisis somewhere, it will work with its wealthier national societies, and Norway being a case in point, and Norway wants to support Federation, IFRC, operations in Zambia, working closely with the Zambian Red Cross or in Lesotho working closely with Lesotho Red Cross. And they come to an agreement about how work is going to be... how assistance is going to be provided. And I think that, I would say really, these trucks were somewhat forced upon both IFRC to start with, and then more so with the national societies of the recipient countries. Yes, there was a... you know, I mean, there was a serious problem there and there were huge volumes of food to be imported and distributed. And it did seem to be a unique opportunity for the World Food Programme and International Federation of Red Cross to work very closely together. Were the trucks appropriate for the for the role? Mostly not. In some cases, I would say yes, though. I mean, we did lots of distribution (I was down there for quite a long period during this time, and I went to most of the countries involved)... and there were distributions made to really remote locations where the other... the alternative for use of those trucks, whether it be just from the topography, such as in Lesotho, or in Zambia, because of the weather during rainy rainy season, there was no viable alternative. Commercial trucking would not have... You couldn't get commercial trucking to do that. And therefore, you know, when you get to the point, well, the only alternative if you is is sort of mules or helicopters, and basically you can't really shift the volumes that we were shifting with that sort of means of transport. I mean, I was deeply involved in that operation and it was, it was very interesting and very challenging. It was thoroughly evaluated by external evaluators, and there was a lot of criticism. But equally it did accept that food was delivered to lots of people who otherwise would not have gotten it. You know, it was gung-ho, it was boys with their toys to a certain degree and it... Yeah, it...
Lars Peter Nissen:I mean, for me... To be honest, for me, it boils down to the flea market approach to humanitarian aid. You take whatever you happen to have in the garage and throw it out there and then testosterone. That seems to be the two factors driving that. And I do hear you around being able to serve populations that otherwise it would have been hard to serve. I still would maintain that the cost of operating a fleet like that and transporting it down there and maintaining it down there, you have quite a lot of money to play with in terms of finding ways of then serving the marginalized.
Rob McConnell:True, of course, of course. But you see, you know, those trucks effectively cost nothing. You know, they were military surplus, they were donated by the government to Norwegian Red Cross, they were transported to Southern Africa by a Norwegian shipping company, free of charge, it was a contribution in kind. So there were... could that money have been used more effectively? Well, that is... I think this... the thing that you saying... this, I think, somewhat outdated (we are talking 20 years ago)... this was a slightly outdated approach to particularly emergency response, which, as you say, is slightly, touch of the flea market, touch of the testosterone. I think, you know, 20 years ago, there was a lot more of that going on than there is today. I mean, sometimes I'm the old school, sometimes that delivers benefit. It's... is it sustainable? Unquestionably no.
Lars Peter Nissen:I think the thing that troubles me about it (and again, I agree with you, I think I think we have gotten better)... I still think it's important for us to revisit some of these operations, because you still see the same dynamics at play. The whole picture you painted during the first part of this interview shows you that the way we manage fleet continues to be problematic. I think the thing that troubled me about that operation were actually the opportunity costs. It's fine that you get it down there for free, it's fine that the government gives them to you for free, it's not so fine, that you have national partners who have to spend a tremendous amount of their best people's time servicing a fleet that, for me, don't really deliver what... it is not justified. And so I think it has a huge detrimental impact on the overall operation because the minute you ship 120 trucks, (and I don't know how many in the regions down there) they actually suck all the oxygen out of the room. They become the whole point of the operation. That's what everybody talked about. It was the pivotal axis of that operation. And what was the opportunity cost of that? What was that we couldn't do because we had to make sure the trucks were okay. And the Norwegians?
Rob McConnell:I... you know, it's an impossible one to calculate. You know, one could argue... I completely agree, it was. It was the most visible activity going on around this project and some of the national societies that we were involved with in southern Africa. Yes, it ate them up in some way, but also gave them a huge visibility boost as well, whether or not that's in balance, good or bad. I don't know. I mean, there's certainly a lot of debate about it. But it was a strange operation because being sort of food insecurity, there was no massive, immediate crisis. Those same trucks were used, for example, in Indonesia, after the tsunami where there was simply no roads. I mean, roads got demolished. And there seemed to be in less controversy about using the trucks there. But in southern Africa, it was a sort of creeping, insidious, invisible crisis, and just there wasn't... crops had failed, that there wasn't enough food around. So it wasn't a calamatous... single cataclysmic event. And so I think one could argue that the fact that the trucks were down there, and there was such a hoopla going on around these, that it gave the operation much more visibility than it would have had otherwise.
Lars Peter Nissen:I don't dispute that point. And I think it's... I'm not a purist in that sense. I'm really happy for us to be able to draw attention to places that are overlooked. And yeah, I'm sure it did contribute to that. But I think we have to be clear on what we're doing then. If that's what we're trying to do, could there possibly be a better and slightly less colonial way of doing that maybe?
Rob McConnell:I think [inaudible] the colonial way, I think that's a very appropriate term. But honestly, I think in the way that we're looking at fleets nowadays, we are looking through much more sophisticated lens. I mean, I think that, you know, there has been quite an effort. I've been I'm very involved over the years since that time, in fact, with, very much, in the beginning with the support of International Federation of Red Cross. We started... created a community of fleet managers or those responsible for fleet throughout the aid and development sector. And when this began way back, 2OO3 ish is the same time as the trucking operation, you know, we thought... My feeling was, we had all of these agencies operating the same types of vehicles in the same environments, funded by the same donors and from what I could see, from the external perspective, everybody was doing it badly. So the idea was to try to bring all of the agencies together to try and look at the fleet and say, How can we do this more effectively and more rationally. And I thought, you know, at the beginning that we just have a kind of workshop with six to eight people, six to eight agencies or so, and in fact, it kind of snowballed. And we met, actually, in October 2OO3, for the first time, and we had 23 agencies represented, from small NGOs in Mozambique, up to the peacekeepers and the UN agency funds and programmes and many NGOs in between. And I thought this was going to be a really useful, practical, technical knowledge sharing opportunity, where we could perhaps all get together and share knowledge, you know. Really, it was quite funny because (we actually met for two days in the end, because we compiled quite an agenda, and lots of people were interested)... But at the beginning... to begin with, it was almost like a group therapy session. You had all these so-called fleet managers who were just saying, 'I'm trying to get my organisation to manage my fleet better and nobody listens to me.' It was like this sort of mass wailing and sobbing and, you know, asking for comfort, because everybody felt that they were... all the fleet managers were saying, we need to manage our fleets better, but management was ignoring them. And then we said, Well, what can we do to try and, you know, bring that together? And actually, that group of people have met every single year (Well, different people, we've grown and many more people now)... But you know, there's an annual event where normally is over 100 people coming to work on how... (at this, the Fleet Forum) how can these agencies share knowledge and improve? So I think in the 20 years, I would say there has been huge change in the way that fleets have been... are being managed. I'm very disappointed that the level of, the amount of, improvement hasn't been greater than it is. I think we should be way further up the curve. We are... you know, we're miles from the Norwegian M6 trucks rattling around Southern Africa. That's ancient history in my mind. We're in a much better place. However, there's still huge progress to be made. I am seeing actually, but there are... many agencies are really taking it seriously now. I mean, I'm... we're working all the time with agencies who are keen to find a way ahead. But it's not unanimous within the organization's it's still a slog, and progress is far slower than it should be. But there's still a long way to go, frankly.
Lars Peter Nissen:Rob McConnell, thank you so much for coming on Trumanitarian and allowing me to shake the closet a bit and see if any skeletons fell out (I think we found one or two) and thank you for all your insights on fleet. It's been fascinating to listen to and it's great to hear that this is an area where actually we are making progress, even though we're not quite yet where we should be. So thank you.
Rob McConnell:Thanks very much, Lars Peter. It's been very interesting to talk about it. Thank you.