5 Data Analysis

5.1 Introduction

The first task was to collate and analyse information on the government fleet, including owned and leased vehicles. The analysis focused on sustainability factors including:

fleet composition (engine size, fuel type, vehicle transmission, age and make of vehicle)
fuel consumption
emissions standards
vehicle safety.

Data for vehicles owned and leased by government was made available by the Ministry of Transport (MoT) from its LANDATA (Land Transport Database), which MoT maintains for all vehicles registered in New Zealand.

is a computer system that includes the following:
Motor Vehicle Register
Road User Charges Database
Land Transport Information System (including WoF [Warrant of Fitness.] Online).

The purpose of LANDATA is to enable vehicle licences to be issued, and road user charges and Motor Vehicle Register fees to be collected, and to assist in law enforcement. LANDATA was not set up to collect information of vehicle attributes such as fuel efficiency or vehicle emissions standards. However, this information has been recorded on the database for all new vehicles and many used imported vehicles registered to enter the New Zealand fleet from March 2005.

This section of the report is mainly the analysis of the LANDATA information supplemented, where appropriate, with data collected as part of FleetCheck assessments. [Together with the Ministry for the Environment and a number of fleet consultants, the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority developed a vehicle fleet auditing process to enable the performance of a fleet to be evaluated and areas of potential improvements identified. A number of pilot FleetCheck audits have been completed by consultants throughout New Zealand in the past few years. General information from the Hamilton City Council, Waitakere City Council, Nelson City Council, Auckland City Council and the Accident Compensation Corporation fleet audits have been used to supplement information from LANDATA. The information provided is a general overview of these fleet audits, rather than specifics from each audit. Permission was sought to use the data from each organisation.]

5.1.1 Format of data supplied

From its LANDATA information system, the Ministry of Transport (MoT) provided a summary list of 21,401 vehicles, which included details of:

company/organisation name
street address, location
preferred company/organisation name
lease flag (that is, whether the vehicle is leased or owned by the organisation)
customer type (company/organisation or lease company managing the fleet)
vehicle registration plate and Vin number
unique vehicle identifier, used by MoT to manage the vehicles within their database
vehicle make, model and sub-model
engine capacity (cc rating)
gross vehicle mass
power rating
transmission type (manual or auto)
fuel type
vehicle year, year first registered in New Zealand and/or year first registered elsewhere in the world
import status (new to New Zealand or a used import)
manufacturers' published fuel consumption figures (l/100 km (city) and l/100 km (highway)), which has only been recorded on the database since March 2005
emissions test standard (Australian, Japanese and European) that applies to the vehicle, which has only been recorded on the database since March 2005.

The Ministry for the Environment provided a list of key government department categories, to group and present the information supplied from the LANDATA information. These key categories were:

public service departments (for example, Department of Conservation, Inland Revenue and Child Youth and Family)
non-public service department (for example, the New Zealand Police, New Zealand Post, New Zealand Defence and the Fire Service)
Offices of Parliament (for example, the Audit Office)
Crown entities (for example, the Accident Compensation Corporation, Housing New Zealand and Transit New Zealand)
district health boards (this category includes district health boards and a small number of other government health agencies)
territorial authorities and regional councils.

Each organisation data set provided by MoT was categorised by sorting all organisations listed into the broad government departments (that is, public service, non-public service, Crown entities).

5.1.2 Data limitations

LANDATA does not include vehicle-specific details such as actual fuel consumption or distances travelled, nor data on hired vehicles. These information gaps limit the performance assessment of the existing fleet, particularly estimating the carbon footprint of the fleet. A clear example is the calculation of total emissions that, for accuracy, requires vehicle-specific details on actual fuel consumption and distances travelled. However, LANDATA information does enable a high-level review of the whole government fleet and was helpful in preparing the fleet and procurement survey, which formed the second part of this study. LANDATA was used to select the organisations surveyed and helped determine the scope of questions to be included in the survey.

Vehicle records are added to LANDATA as vehicles are registered when they enter the New Zealand fleet. Some details, such as the name and address of the registered owner, are changed when vehicles are sold and are updated when vehicles are relicensed. Details of certain vehicle attributes (such as the fuel type) are updated when changes are noted through the vehicle inspection regime.

Where data analysis is based on individual organisations (such as for the survey analysis, Section 6), a visual sort and count was carried out using LANDATA information. Minor errors could be created using this method as the accuracy of the count depends on whether or not all values are picked up correctly. For example, vehicles belonging to the New Zealand Defence Force are recorded against a range of company names relating to the defence force. If all fields were not picked up correctly, minor errors may occur within the total values for that organisation's fleet.

Where the LANDATA information is supplemented by data from FleetCheck assessments, the limitations of that data have also been noted. The key limitation is that it is specific to the organisation audited. Although the fleet check results are based on detailed fleet information and data reviews, only general findings can be applied to other organisations.

A complete analysis of this data is available in Appendix D. The following section summarises the conclusions.

5.2 Conclusions from the data analysis

5.2.1 Fleet characteristics

Table 5-1 summarises the key findings from the LANDATA information, in terms of fleet characteristics. The information is presented in the organisation categories used throughout this section of the report. There are some known information gaps within the raw data, and some parameters, such as vehicle fuel consumption ratings and emissions ratings, have only been recorded in the database since March 2005.

Table 5-1: Summary of fleet information

View summary of fleet information (large table)

The summary table and the data analysis provide some useful, high-level information.

Vehicle size

District health board (DHB) fleets comprise mostly small to medium vehicles, with 88 percent under 2000 cc and 46 percent being 1600 cc or less. As 80 percent of the fleet is five or less years old, the DHB fleet is likely to be relatively fuel-efficient and have fewer emissions.
Over half of the non-public service department fleets comprise vehicles that are 3000 cc or larger. These vehicles are likely to be fairly high fuel users and higher emitters. However, it is expected that the large engine size vehicles are mainly goods van, trucks and utility type vehicles, like those needed for the New Zealand Police and New Zealand Defence Force. In these instances, 'fit for purpose' criteria and other considerations such as the safety rating of vehicles may take precedence over environmental considerations.
The public service department and territorial local authority (TLA) fleets tend to include a wide range of vehicle sizes, typically spread between 1000 and 3000 cc. Some TLAs may require larger vehicles, such as four wheel drives, for specific tasks. Because of the range of tasks council vehicles may be required for, fleet assessments should be carried out at an individual organisation level, to assess if existing vehicles can be replaced with smaller but 'fit for purpose' vehicles.
Crown entity fleets have a significant portion of vehicles that are 3000-4000 cc (64 percent). These vehicles are likely to have a number of adverse environmental impacts, particularly in high fuel usage and vehicle emissions. To ensure sustainability of the fleet a significant proportion of these vehicles should be downsized.
Although 80 percent of Offices of Parliament vehicles are no larger than 2000 cc, only 20 percent are 1600 cc or less. Therefore, potential remains to downsize many of the 1601-2000 cc vehicles to less than 1600 cc.

Fuel type

In the overall government fleet, most vehicles (75 percent) are petrol fuelled and a relatively minor portion (25 percent) operate on diesel. Although hybrids are emerging within the fleet and some vehicles are powered by renewable fuels such as LPG, the number of these vehicles is too small to be identified at a high level.
With the high numbers of petrol-fuelled vehicles within the fleet, the greatest potential to reduce the environmental impacts related to fuel type is through the selection of fuel-efficient vehicles. As the quality of New Zealand's diesel improves, vehicles that operate on clean diesel (either standard, low-sulphur diesel or biodiesel) will offer environmental benefits by reducing carbon dioxide emissions from the fleet, while providing an acceptable level of emissions for other gases and particulates.

Fuel consumption

The average combined fuel consumption rating over all government organisation categories (excluding the Offices of Parliament) is 9.2 l/100 km for petrol vehicles and 9.6 l/100 km for diesel vehicles.
With the exception of one diesel vehicle (an outlier in the district health board records), the average combined fuel economy rating of district health board vehicles is notably lower than for any other organisation categories. This matches information provided on engine cc rating (see Table 9-2) showing that district health board vehicles are typically of a smaller engine size than those owned or leased by other organisations.
Non-public service department vehicles are the most inefficient, with most being petrol-fuelled and with an average combined fuel economy rating of 11 l/100 km.
Petrol-fuelled public service department, Crown entity and territorial local authority vehicles have an average, combined fuel economy rating of between 8.4 and 9.2 l/100 km. Fuel economy ratings for diesel vehicles owned or leased by public service departments and territorial local authorities are 9.6 and 9.7 l/100 km respectively (no records are available for diesel Crown entity vehicles).

Emissions levels

The limited records currently available for emissions standards of the fleet show that most vehicles are rated as Euro II or ADR 79/00, which meets the 2005 requirements of the New Zealand Vehicle Exhaust Emissions Rule.
The potential for reducing the environmental impacts related to vehicle emissions is related to vehicle selection, vehicle replacement and vehicle maintenance.
There would be a significant reduction in emissions contaminants if Euro IV vehicles are purchased rather than Euro II. However, as the standards set by the New Zealand Emissions Rule are relatively low (Euro II in 2005 and Euro III in 2006), vehicles manufactured for the New Zealand market may not be high performers in terms of emissions reduction technology. Few Euro IV (or equivalent) vehicles may be currently available in New Zealand.

Carbon footprint

Measuring the carbon dioxide emissions produced by the fleet with any certainty is difficult because of limited data available on fuel economy and vehicle emissions ratings for specific vehicles in LANDATA, and a lack of data on kilometres travelled. However, using an estimation method supplied by Land Transport New Zealand (October 2005), a baseline value for carbon dioxide emissions from the total government fleet is 112,000 tonne/annum. This estimate can be refined as more data becomes available.

Vehicle safety

Australian New Car Assessment Programme (ANCAP) [Safety information for new vehicles is based on the results of crash testing carried out by the Australian New Car Assessment Programme (ANCAP), of which Land Transport New Zealand is a member. Two crash tests are performed on each vehicle model, an offset frontal test and a side impact test, as these tests simulate two of the most common crashes that occur on our roads. Recent results also include pedestrian tests, which replicate crashes involving child and adult pedestrians where impacts occur at 40 km/hour.] ratings were available for 17 out of the 31 most common vehicle makes and models within the government fleet. Of those 17 vehicles, one scored five stars, eight scored four stars, seven scored three stars, and one scored a two-star rating.
Actual crash data from New Zealand and Australia (used vehicle safety ratings) is available for 24 out of the 31 most common vehicle makes and models within the government fleet. Of those 24 vehicles, 10 have passenger protection ratings of either better or significantly better than average, 12 have average passenger protection ratings and two have worse or significantly worse ratings.
The Used Car Safety Rating Guide [The Used Car Safety Ratings are based on actual test data from New Zealand and Australia, which has been analysed by Monash University's Accident Research Centre. Safety ratings are provided for vehicles manufactured between 1982 and 2003.] also provides ratings for the amount of harm the vehicle causes to other vehicles should a crash occur, and this information is available for 23 of the 31 most common vehicle makes and models within the government fleet. Of those 23 vehicles, six have been rated as causing less or significantly less harm than average to other vehicles, 10 are rated as causing an average amount of harm and seven have been rated as causing more or significantly more harm than average to other vehicles.

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