Your Fleet Data Profile

You might have the sneaking suspicion that you miss selling to a lot of fleets? You see them driving by. Or you hear of them online. But you don’t see them in the data you get.

This is because, not all fleet data is the same.

Data can affect your ability to reach potential customers, and you deserve to know the inside baseball about this.

Once you know, you can make better investments in data. You’ll be able to ask questions of data vendors and evaluate if they can meet your needs. (And of course ask these questions of us too, if you explore our data.)

Most fleet data has only the headquarters location. This might not be an issue for you, if you sell nationwide and need only the total fleet information for a company.

Here’s an example of a waste management company, where you can see its headquarters location in Houston, versus all of its fleet locations:

The problem is, if you are not in Houston, you would not get information about this company. But what if they have fleet locations in your area?

This is only one example of tens of thousands of companies that have locations regionally or nationwide.

The reason you don’t find enough data …

Because most data vendors use Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) data. The FMCSA focuses on fleets that must follow federal regulations. These are fleets that:

• Have vehicles that exceed a gross vehicle weight rating (GVWR) of 10,001 lbs., which would be medium and heavy duty
• Cross state lines, for interstate commerce
• Employ drivers with commercial driver licenses
• Haul hazardous materials
• Carry a larger number of passengers

The FMCSA will not have data about fleets that aren’t subject to federal regulations.

Let’s get an idea of what this means for you. Here are the number of locations with 5 or more of any type of fleet vehicles in Arizona:

• Fleet database with many sources: 66,800
• FMCSA data: 3,300

If you think about what’s not included in FMCSA data, it’s a lot of the light duty fleets that tend to operate locally. Construction, contractors and facility services. Smaller box trucks for local last mile delivery. Field service like utilities repair.

So if you are not finding enough fleets, you need data that comes from a different source than only FMCSA data.

There is also state data available from a small number of partners. But some states have privacy laws that limit how commercial fleet data can be used. If you sell in any of the 10 states below, there may be very little or no data about local fleets available:

If you need info about local fleets or fleets in these states, there are options for you. We talk more below about data that could meet your needs.

Meanwhile, if it’s been hard to find enough relevant fleets to grow your business, this explanation about federal and state data should shed light on why.

If you want more detail about these data sources, we have a longer article with more information.

You likely won’t find all vehicle types in “trucking databases.”

Why? It’s the same reason we explain above for local data. Because most of these databases are using the FMCSA data, and the FMCSA has information primarily about medium and heavy duty vehicles.

Now, we’re not here to criticize FMCSA data. Not at all. We include it in our database because it’s good data if you’re looking for medium and heavy duty fleets. We include that data in our ProsperFleet database.

But if you’re also looking for the light duty fleets – like sedans, pickups, cargo vans – the FMCSA data is not the best source for this.

To get the most complete view of the fleet market, it’s better to use a database where information comes from many sources.

Let’s compare some local numbers. Here’s a search for fleets with 5 or more of all types of vehicles in the Los Angeles/Long Beach/Santa Ana metro area:

• Fleet database with many sources: 19,600 companies with 27,5000 locations
• FMCSA data: 3,200 companies

Let’s try another one. Here are fleets with 5 or more of all types of vehicles in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale metro area:

• Fleet database with many sources: 11,700 companies with 14,500 locations
• FMCSA data: 1,800 companies

The difference is the huge number of light duty local fleets that are not in FMCSA data.

When you’re trying to find enough fleets to sell to, it’s important to know that the vast majority of fleets have fewer than 5 vehicles. This is true from any data source:

If you are looking for the small fleets, this is good news for you.

But if you’re looking for larger fleets, well, as an example, fleets of 50+ vehicles are only 2% of all fleets.

So it’s important to invest in the data that has enough fleets for your prospecting.