Vehicle Usage Rates

[RiverAux]

One of the things that NHQ has deemed important enough to be included on the "Commanders Dashboard" is vehicle usage rate which is tracked as the percentage of vehicles reported as being used in the last month. 

They have color coded these percentages in this fashion:
Blue = 100%
Green = 90-99%
Yellow = 80-89%
Red < 80%

Is this really a good measure of whether we are really making adequate use of our vehicles?  Someone of a cynical bent wanting to make their dashboard look good could simply have each squadron take the vehicle out for a "test" drive every month to "ensure that is operating properly and safely" and they would get a "Blue" rating.

Just what information are we submitting to National now on the CAPF-73?  Well, it is the number of hours the vehicle was used each day, broken down into four areas (Admin, Cadet Programs, Mission Support, and Other).  We don't report the number of miles driven each month, but there is a spot to record end-of-month odometer readings and I'm sure the system can pull out the last report and come up with totally mileage in the last month.

Here are how the 4 areas are defined:

ADMIN: Trips to meetings, conferences and personnel transportation to and from airports or hotels.
(b) CADET ACTIVITIES: Any activity pertaining to and involving cadets and cadet programs.
(c) MISSION SUPPORT: Drug Demand Reduction, Counterdrug, Homeland Security, Emergency Services (Search and Rescue/Disaster Relief) and Aerospace Education and Training.
(d) OTHER: Vehicle maintenance, servicing, inspections and repairs, parts and supply pick up.

So, the easiest change to the current system would be to take out any "Other" uses and only count days on which the vehicle was used for Admin, Cadets, or Mission Support.  But even then, this is a pretty weak way of tracking vehicle usage.

So, how might we improve this?  Well, we could do some analysis and get some idea of the average number of days per month vehicles are being used for "non-other" uses across CAP and then compare the units data to that average.  For example, if national CAP vehicles are used an average of 10 days per month and the average in your unit is only 3, you would be way below average.  Rankings for such a system might be something like: Blue= 100%+ of the national average, Yellow= 50-99% of the national average and Red= <50% of the national average. 

As a commander the absolute number of days used is less important than how I compare to other units since if I'm using my vehicle much, much less than anybody else then that is the vehicle most at risk of going someplace else.

Now, other alternatives might be based on the total number of hours used per month rather than just days used.  Or you could try to come up with some system to weight the use of the different categories (i.e., use on mission support get double the "points" of use for Admin.). 

Thoughts?

[RADIOMAN015]

If I remember correctly the reporting is done by the number of hours the vehicle is used in each category.

I know in the 12 pax (formerly 15 pax) van that is assigned to use, we have a unit fairly close by that uses are van on occasions.  We've also had some wing wide activities where a number of units were actually transported in the van. 

To a certain extent I think the system can be "gamed" so to speak.  One also needs to look at geographic locations of units within the wing to ensure that the vehicles have been spread out.  The big "IF" is always what ES missions will come up.  Sort of like a fire department, some of your capacity may never be used, or not used very often, but you still need to have that capability.
RM

[MIGCAP]

Just to be clear, the colors and rating relate to whether you reported the vehicles usage or not, does not have anything to do with how much or for what it was used.

[RiverAux]

That is incorrect. 

This is a direct quote from the explanation of the color codes from the dashboard itself:

Percentage of Vehicles with Reported Usage for Last Month

[MIGCAP]

Nope Sorry, but if you report one with zero usage for the month, it turns green. They only care that you report then, not if you use them, for the color rating anyway.  With CAP software applications never go by what it says, go by what it does. Reported usage of zero is reported usage.