Vehicle Maintenance Up to the Challenge

Vehicle Maintenance Up to the Challenge
By Robert “Bobby” Bock
Southeast Area Vice President

In my 40-plus-year Postal Service career, I have seen a lot of changes. No doubt all of you also have experienced these changes for better or worse. In my department, Vehicle Maintenance, our reporting structure changed from reporting to districts to now reporting to Postal Headquarters.

One thing Postmaster General Louis DeJoy has been known for is making change happen. This spring, he announced a new position: vice president of Fleet Management and Electrification Strategy. Ronnie J. Jarriel holds this new position.

Jarriel is an operations and supply chain management professional with multi-industry experience, including aerospace, retail, telecommunications, medical devices and consumer packaged goods. Jarriel will be a direct report to the PMG and responsible for converting a major portion of the fleet to electric vehicles.

Right now, the fleet is working on implementing telematics. We already have installed 70,000 of these devices on our postal vehicles. Tele matics gives management the ability to observe vehicle performance in real time. We will be able to determine the speed of a vehicle, as well as its location. This new tool should make it easier to locate vehicles when conducting driver observations.

The fleet also is deploying new trailers, box trucks and tractors to improve the service to mail processing and delivery units. Through 2028, we will deploy over 9,000 Ford E-Transits, 9,000 ProMasters, 14,000 Mercedes RHD vehicles, 60,000 next-generation vehicles and over 12,000 electric vehicles. This will bring us a long way from our old LLVs.

To get ready for these dramatic changes, we have to install thousands of charging stations in our delivery units. At our garages, we have to install new maintenance lifts to handle vehicles that are much heavier than our current fleet. Some of our facilities do not have doors high enough to allow the new vehicles to enter the service areas.

The deployment of new vehicles and the challenges being placed on our shoulders will be considerable. But I know our members in Vehicle Maintenance are up to the challenges. The deployment of over 100,000 new vehicles will be accomplished through the hard work and dedication of our members in Vehicle Maintenance.