Beyond Cost-Cutting: How Rightsizing Builds Resilient Utility Fleets
Beyond Cost-Cutting: How Rightsizing Builds Resilient Utility Fleets
The Storm on the Horizon and the Idle Fleet in the Yard
On a blue-sky day, it’s not unusual to see dozens of utility trucks sitting idle in the yard. To a finance officer, those parked vehicles might look like bloated overhead. But to a Fleet Operations Director at an electric or gas utility, each one represents insurance against the next ice storm or blackout. This is the central tension of fleet rightsizing in the utility sector: how do you trim the fleet’s fat without cutting muscle needed for emergencies?
Traditional rightsizing models often fall short of this reality. Utility fleets aren’t like delivery fleets with predictable peaks, they must be prepared for surge events like hurricanes and wildfires, yet avoid the drag of too many rarely-used vehicles. It’s a high-wire balancing act between cost and readiness, played out under intense scrutiny from regulators, executives, and even union stakeholders.
Utility fleet managers know fleets tend to grow unwieldy over time, accumulating highly specialized or aging vehicles that see little use day-to-day. These surplus units drive up fuel and maintenance costs with minimal return. Simply slashing them, however, is not so simple. Managers face real internal pressures and fears that outsiders often overlook.
For one, emergency preparedness is paramount: departments insist on keeping spare trucks and equipment “just in case”, a lesson learned from hard experience. No fleet leader wants to be caught shorthanded when a major storm knocks out power to thousands.
At the same time, many stakeholders resist change: field supervisors and union reps worry that removing vehicles will hinder crews or even threaten jobs. It’s common for departments to treat vehicles as their own property and be reluctant to participate in motor pools or sharing due to trust issues. Budget dynamics also create perverse incentives: if a manager fears next year’s capital funds could be cut, they may hoard an old spare vehicle now rather than dispose of it, just to avoid being caught without a needed unit later.
These realities make rightsizing in a utility environment uniquely challenging.
The Complex Role of the Utility Fleet Leader
Fleet Operations Directors, Fleet Asset Managers, and Fleet Services Supervisors in utilities must simultaneously:
- Maintain emergency response capability for linemen, bucket trucks, and specialty units
- Meet modernization and sustainability mandates
- Contain capital and operational costs under scrutiny from finance and regulators
- Navigate internal politics and union concerns
- Demonstrate credible, data-supported stewardship of the fleet
All while trying to align with evolving business needs, ratepayer expectations, and reliability standards.
This is far more complex than a simple cost-cutting exercise. A generic mandate to “cut 10% of fleet costs” won’t resonate with a utility fleet manager who lies awake worrying about the next hurricane season or the next board meeting.
A New Lens: Rightsizing for Readiness and Credibility
What if we reframed fleet rightsizing not as a budget-trimming drill, but as a strategy for long-term resilience and credibility?
For utility fleet leaders, this shift in thinking is key to overcoming the conventional objections. Rather than focusing on what the fleet will lose, the conversation shifts to what the organization will gain.
Rightsizing becomes about strengthening the core fleet, ensuring the utility has exactly the right number and mix of vehicles to meet 95% of its daily and emergency needs, and not a single unit more.
Rightsizing enables:
- Capital cost avoidance by eliminating vehicles that aren’t needed
- Lower total cost of ownership by reducing maintenance, insurance, and admin expenses
- Reinvestment in modernization by funding EV transitions, improved telematics, or new tools
- Improved credibility with regulators, executives, and the public
A rightsized fleet signals to leadership that the team is proactively managing resources and planning for long-term needs, not hoarding assets or chasing capital.
Rightsizing in Practice: Data, Dialogue, and Discipline
Of course, none of this is to say that rightsizing is painless or risk-free. Utility fleet managers know the stakes are high if you get it wrong. That’s why modern rightsizing is not about across-the-board cuts. It’s about intentional, informed action:
1. Leverage Multi-System Utilization Data
Telematics, maintenance logs, fuel systems, and work orders must be integrated to provide a full picture of vehicle usage over time, not just mileage or engine hours, but actual purpose and patterns across seasons and departments.
2. Set Custom Benchmarks
What counts as “underused” for a service pickup may differ drastically from a bucket truck. Define thresholds by class, role, and region and adjust for seasonal surge capacity.
3. Collaborate with Departments and Unions
Transparency and inclusion ease resistance. Host review sessions with crew leaders and union representatives. Use shared data to align on what vehicles can be retired, reassigned, or rotated.
4. Model Impact Scenarios
Don’t just show which vehicles can be removed to show what those savings will fund. Demonstrate how reduced fleet size can enable electrification, digital systems, or other initiatives that improve service reliability.
5. Make Rightsizing Ongoing
Set regular reviews to track progress and adjust based on changing conditions, new contracts, new weather patterns, or business priorities.
Resilience, Not Reduction
A rightsized fleet is not a downsized fleet, it’s a fit-for-purpose fleet. It ensures the right assets are available when they’re truly needed and frees up capital for modernization.
Fleet leaders who treat rightsizing as an act of resilience, not restriction: build stronger operations, leaner cost structures, and organizational credibility. And in an era when fleet teams are expected to do more with less while preparing for the unknown, that credibility is one of the most valuable assets of all.
Rightsizing Resources
Need more information about rightsizing? Check out some helpful resources below.
- Download the Ebook: Get your team aligned with a Rightsizing Strategy