How Fleet compares you to peers
Fleet is where you track vehicles, maintenance, DOT compliance, insurance, drivers, and recurring costs. Underneath that record-keeping, Verinode reads four numbers out of your fleet data every nig…
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What this is
Fleet is where you track vehicles, maintenance, DOT compliance, insurance, drivers, and recurring costs. Underneath that record-keeping, Verinode reads four numbers out of your fleet data every night and anonymizes them into a peer cohort: fleet cost per mile, vehicles per FTE, average vehicle age, and commercial-auto premium per vehicle. Every operator who tracks a fleet contributes the same four numbers, and every operator who tracks a fleet reads the same cohort back.
Verinode never sells this data to carriers, and no other operator ever sees your name attached to a number. The four metrics roll into an anonymized cohort figure (an average and a spread), and that cohort figure is what appears back to you, whether as a peer distribution on Benchmarks or as a Feed signal when your own number runs notably off the pack. You decide what to do with the gap; Verinode never makes that call for you.
Where to find it
Sidebar → Fleet (/fleet) is where the underlying data lives: the Roster, Maintenance, Compliance, Insurance, Drivers, Accidents, and Costs tabs behind the Explore row. That's where you capture vehicle year and mileage, log recurring costs, add your commercial auto policy, and keep your driver roster current. Fleet doesn't display the four peer numbers directly today; it captures the raw inputs that feed them.
Two places actually show the peer comparison:
- Sidebar → Benchmarks (
/benchmarks), on the Benchmarks tab (the default tab, alongside Carriers & TPAs, Materials, Industry Data, Ratings, Analyst Reports, and Industry News), under the Vehicle Fleet category. Scroll down to it, or use the tab's search/filter if the page has one for your view. This is the reference view: the anonymized cohort distribution for each of the four metrics, always available to browse. - Your Feed, when one of your own fleet numbers runs meaningfully above or below the peer figure. Verinode raises a signal with your number, the peer number, and (where it can be estimated) the dollar difference over a year, plus a recommendation. This is the more complete comparison: your number and the peer number side by side, not just the peer side.
Note
On the Benchmarks page today, the "You vs peer" column for these four rows reads "Add data" regardless of how complete your Fleet records are. What's live there is the peer side: the distribution bar and the peer average come from other operators' real numbers, gated the same way as every other benchmark on the page. The place you'll actually see your own fleet number lined up next to the peer number is a Feed signal, described below.
The four metrics
Fleet Cost / Mile
Your annualized recurring fleet cost (fuel, lease, parking, and any other recurring line you've logged on the Costs tab that hasn't ended) divided by your fleet's total odometer mileage, summed across every active vehicle's Mileage field on the Roster tab. Lower is better. It's a fleet-wide figure today, not a per-vehicle one, so it's a blended read across your whole fleet rather than a diagnosis of any single truck.
Vehicles / FTE
Your count of active vehicles on the Roster tab divided by your active team headcount. This one has no "better" direction: it's a sizing read, not a score. A high number can mean healthy spare capacity for a growth push, or vehicles sitting idle in the yard. A low number can mean lean utilization, or crews doubling up and dispatch running thin. Read the peer figure as a "where do I sit" reference, not a target.
Average Vehicle Age
The mean age in years across every active vehicle with a Year captured on the Roster tab (current year minus the vehicle's model year, averaged). Lower (newer) is generally read as better, since older fleets tend to carry higher maintenance and downtime risk.
Auto Premium / Vehicle
Your active commercial auto policy's Annual Premium (from the Add Commercial Auto Policy form on the Insurance tab) divided by its Vehicles Covered count. Lower is better. This only computes while you have an active policy on file with both fields filled in; a lapsed or incomplete policy simply drops out of your own number until you update it.
Getting your own numbers counted
None of the four metrics compute unless the underlying Fleet records are there. To make sure your fleet contributes (and reads back) real numbers:
- 1On the Roster tab, make sure every active vehicle has a Year and a Mileage value. Vehicles missing either field are simply left out of the age or cost-per-mile calculation, not counted as zero.
- 2On the Costs tab, log your recurring fleet costs (fuel, lease, parking, and similar) with a Cost type, an Amount, and no End date in the past. A cost with a past end date is treated as no longer running and drops out of the monthly total.
- 3On the Insurance tab, keep one active commercial auto policy on file with an Annual premium and a Vehicles covered count. Both fields have to be populated for the premium-per-vehicle figure to compute.
- 4Keep your active team headcount current (added under Team). Vehicles per FTE reads your active vehicle count against your active team count, so a stale headcount skews the ratio either way.
Contribution and privacy
Whether your fleet data reaches the peer cohort at all is controlled by the Contribute to peer benchmarks toggle under Settings → Data Contribution. When it's on, your anonymized numbers flow into the same benchmark cohorts that power every metric on the Benchmarks page, not fleet specifically. When it's off, your fleet data stays out of the cohort and your own Fleet page keeps working exactly the same; you just don't feed (or read) the peer side.
All contributions are anonymized and irreversible: your identity is never attached to a number in the cohort, and Verinode does not sell this or any operator data to carriers. Full detail is in the data use policy, linked from that same Settings panel.
Cohort building and empty states
A peer figure only appears once enough operators have contributed and cleared Verinode's privacy floor. Until then, the Benchmarks row for that metric reads:
Cohort building. Peer data appears once it clears the consent + sample threshold.
This is normal, not a broken screen. As more restoration operators turn Fleet on and opt into peer benchmarks, cohorts that are still forming today will populate. Verinode never shows how many operators are in a cohort or how close it is to clearing; you'll simply see the distribution appear once it's ready.
If you have no active vehicles yet, Fleet's own hero panel reads: "Add a service truck, van, equipment trailer, or hydrovac to start tracking maintenance, DOT compliance, fuel costs, and driver records," and the Recently added row reads: "No vehicles yet. Use "+ Add Vehicle" in the header to capture your first service truck, van, or trailer." None of the four peer metrics can compute until at least one active vehicle is on the Roster.
When Verinode flags a gap (Feed signals)
Three of the four metrics also power signals that can land in your Feed, each comparing your own number to the peer figure directly and estimating the dollar stake where it applies:
- Vehicles per FTE, over or under peer. A title like "Over-vehicled vs peer" or "Under-vehicled vs peer" with both numbers shown. The body reasons through what a wide gap usually means (idle capacity worth auditing, or crews doubling up ahead of a busy stretch), and the recommendation points at a concrete next step: audit utilization and consider parking or selling underused units, or get a quote on an added vehicle before the next volume push overwhelms dispatch.
- Fuel and recurring cost per mile, above peer. A title like "Fuel + recurring costs $[your rate]/mi vs peer $[peer rate]" when your rate runs meaningfully above the cohort, with the annualized dollar gap called out. The recommendation points at the usual suspects: route efficiency (long deadheads), fuel-card discipline (personal use, off-network fills), and driver behavior (idle time, hard acceleration).
- Commercial auto premium per vehicle, above peer. A title like "Commercial auto premium $[your rate]/vehicle vs peer $[peer rate]" when your premium runs meaningfully above the cohort, with the annualized dollar gap called out. The recommendation is to have your broker shop the renewal against a couple of other carriers; a premium well above cohort commonly points at a flagged loss run, a stale MVR file, or carrier exclusivity, all of which are worth negotiating once you can anchor the conversation with a peer number.
Average vehicle age doesn't currently drive a Feed signal on its own; it surfaces only on the Benchmarks Vehicle Fleet row today.
Every one of these signals is a prompt, not a verdict. Verinode surfaces the gap and a recommendation; you decide whether to act on it, and nothing changes on your book until you do.