Electronic vehicle movement system moDel is predicted to produce a record year after adding extra functionality to its software in late 2023.

The system, produced by Ebbon Automotive and widely used throughout the fleet industry to electronically handle vehicle movements between manufacturers, dealers and fleet customers, has seen its volumes climb 25% in the first quarter of 2024.

There were 532,000 vehicle movements recorded through the moDel portal in the five months to 31st May on the back of strong organic growth from existing customers and burgeoning fleet sales. Logistics providers dominated the 25 new customers that signed up to the system in the first five months of the year, which compared to 35 over the whole of 2023.

Much of this growth is attributed to the additional functionality that Ebbon Automotive has installed on the moDel portal to further increase its efficiency, particularly around the increase in client integrations this has allowed. The improvement in API integration capability allows the software to integrate directly and more readily with the back offices of customers.

Ebbon Automotive head of commercial logistics Michael Terry has seen great interest and an increase in volumes from the moDel API. “(It allows) customers to push data directly to us and extract key data from the system almost in real time, with major time savings and efficiency gains – we currently have three customer integrations ongoing with a further four or five in the pipeline,” Terry said.

Further functionality additions in the first quarter of this year and based on customer feedback have included efficiency improvements in driver diary and vehicle movement planning, which allows customers to more efficiently allocate jobs to specific drivers online. “The new driver planning tool allows customers to allocate jobs directly into driver’s online diaries, even splitting jobs between drivers if required, and saving time and resources – this is just another way in which we have further enhanced the platform’s market-leading position as we continue to gear up for further expansion,” Terry added.

Last year saw moDel break through the 1m vehicle movement barrier for the first time, recording 1,087,000 vehicle movements. “Based on the first five months of this year, we are now looking at over 1.2m vehicle movements for 2024, another new record,” said Terry.

Fleet sales have again been a factor in the platform’s continued growth. So far this year, fleet and business registrations are 25% higher than for the same period in 2023, according to the latest industry figures. “As moDel is primarily fleet-focused, strong sales across the whole fleet industry this year is good news and have directly contributed to these results,” Terry said.