For growing number of fuel card providers and fleet managers, full fleet data capture is becoming an essential requirement.

"In the future, gas stations will all provide full fleet data," predicts Stuart McGhee, marketing director of Com-Check Fleet Services in Nashville, TN. There are more than 192,000 service stations in the U.S.

Full fleet data reporting as provided by the major card issuers can provide detailed information to fleet managers. The reports are generated whenever a driver uses a card to make a fuel purchase.

Many fuel card providers are also developing systems for authorization prompts which allow for extra security. These systems require that the driver enter information such as a driver ID, VIN number, or license information before any purchase is made. It is nearly impossible for unauthorized persons to use the card, or for the card to be used to fuel a non-company vehicle.

Although full fleet data is essentially the same for all cards at this level of reporting, there are significant differences in the number of sites that honor individual cards, as the chart on the following page indicates. This is a factor to take in to consideration when choosing a fleet card.

Full fleet data capture at the time of purchase is the key to better eon-trolling cost for the fleet manager.

"If you don't capture all the information up front, you can't control it on the back end." said Mike Dubyak, CEO and president of Wright Express.

Electronic transactions with full fleet data capture conducted with Wright Express' Universal Fleet Card are more than 97 percent of all WEX Card transactions.

Although there is currently a wide variation in the level of acceptance among the various card issuers, all are striving to implement full fleet data reporting as quickly as possible.

"The MasterCard Corporate Fleet Card has enjoyed significant growth both in the number of cards and merchant penetration. Strong support from the merchant community has brought data capture to 88,000 locations and authorization prompts to 60,000 in only two years," said Fred Gore, senior vice president of United States Acceptance Group. "MasterCard will aggressively continue to increase the level of support of enhanced data and authorization prompting as numerous merchant commitments have been obtained for 1999."

According to Vicki Carpenter, president of Voyager Fleet Systems, "Voyager is rapidly approaching saturation in terms of Level III full fleet data capture with our petroleum partners."

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"In 1999, we anticipate a completion of our efforts in the petroleum segment, along with an aggressive recruitment program on the maintenance merchant side of the business. The maintenance market is the area where our customers want, to have the Voyager card accepted," said Carpenter.

There are several levels of reporting available today to fleet managers, with Level I being the most basic and full fleet data capture being the most comprehensive.

At Level I, the report of the purchase includes:

• Total purchase amount.

• Date of purchase.

• Name of merchant.

• City and state of merchant.

• Debit or credit purchase. Full fleet data capture includes:

• Unit cost.

• Driver ID.

• Discount.

• Product description.

• VIN number.

• Odometer reading.

• Cost per mile.

• Miles per gallon.

For fleet managers, full fleet data can show which drivers are mis-fueling their vehicles, which are over doing maintenance, or which drivers are missing scheduled maintenance.