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Car rental and fleet management glossary
Plain-language definitions of the terms rental and fleet teams use every day.
- Utilization rate
- The share of available days a vehicle is rented. Rented days divided by available days.
- Average daily rate (ADR)
- Rental revenue divided by the number of rented days.
- Revenue per available vehicle day
- Utilization multiplied by average daily rate. A single measure of fleet earning power.
- Security deposit
- An amount held against damage, fines or unpaid charges and returned at the end of the rental if not needed.
- Deductible (excess)
- The part of a damage cost the customer or the rental company pays before insurance pays the rest.
- Check-in and check-out inspection
- A documented condition check at handover and at return, usually with fuel, odometer and damage notes.
- Grace period
- A short time after the agreed return time before late charges start.
- One-way rental
- A rental picked up at one location and returned at another.
- Odometer
- The instrument that records the distance a vehicle has travelled.
- Geofence
- A virtual boundary on a map that triggers an alert when a tracked vehicle enters or leaves it.
- Telematics
- Technology that sends vehicle data such as position, speed and ignition status to a central system.
- Remote immobilization
- Disabling a vehicle from a distance, for example after theft, through a device fitted to it.
- Preventive maintenance
- Servicing on a planned schedule by distance or time, before parts fail.
- Depreciation
- The spreading of a vehicle cost over its useful life, reducing its book value over time.
- Book value
- The vehicle cost minus accumulated depreciation.
- Lease-in
- Leasing a vehicle from a lessor to use in your own fleet.
- Lease-out
- Leasing one of your vehicles to a customer for a longer term.
- Total cost of ownership (TCO)
- All the costs of owning and running a vehicle, including depreciation, insurance, maintenance and financing.
- Chauffeur service
- A booking that includes a driver as well as the vehicle.
- Cold chain
- Keeping temperature-sensitive cargo within a set temperature range during transport.
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