Fleet management provider Merchants Fleet has selected fleet orchestration company Ridecell and its Ridecell 360 fleet solutions to optimize the management of its short-term fleet.

In a news release, Merchants Fleet said the strategic partnership will significantly enhance operational efficiency and employee productivity to support its continued growth in the short-term leasing sector.

The companies said Ridecell has been able to fully integrate multiple systems since they began working together less than a year ago.

Merchants’ short-term leasing division supports clients that include corporate fleets, last-mile delivery companies, seasonal businesses and mobile service providers. Its short-term lease offerings — primarily light-duty vehicles such as vans, trucks and passenger vans — are designed to meet the ebb and flow of seasonal last-mile and short-haul delivery vehicle demands, with rentals typically ranging from a few weeks up to a year.

As demand for short-term leasing increased, Merchants found the tools and processes, spread across multiple systems such as CRMs, lease management software, transportation systems and spreadsheets, were inefficient and began to explore ways to streamline workflows and decrease response times.

That led the company to Ridecell 360.

“Our goal is to lead the fleet management industry through innovation and superior service,” Merchants Fleet interim co-CEO Brad Burgess said. “By partnering with Ridecell, we’re able to streamline our operations and scale our short-term fleet like never before. Ridecell’s platform allows us to be more effective and efficient by helping us bring together data from multiple systems and enabling better decision-making.”

Burgess cited vehicle remarketing decisions as an example.

“When a vehicle is offboarded, the system automatically tags it for resale or redeployment back into the fleet based on pre-configured rules,” he said, “a process that was previously managed manually through spreadsheets. This level of automation not only reduces manual labor but also allows Merchants Fleet to quickly adapt to changing market conditions.”

The Ridecell automation platform process large volumes of fleet data and allows Merchants to automate and optimize asset management through real-time diagnostics data. Ridecell is also designed to support transportation logistics by providing a linear workflow that tracks the status of every vehicle in the fleet, from deployment to maintenance.

Merchants said Ridecell’s technology is focused on operational efficiency, cost reduction, asset utilization and employee productivity.

Ridecell CEO Aarjav Trivedi said Merchants Fleet is “at the forefront of the mobility revolution,” and said his company’s fleet orchestration technology is a perfect match to support its vision.

“Our platform is designed to integrate with existing systems and provide a unified view of fleet operations,” he said, “helping Merchants optimize its processes and scale its fleet without the growing pains that typically come with expansion.

“Together, we’re setting a new standard for digital transformation in the vehicle leasing industry to meet the evolving needs of fleet customers.”

Merchants Fleet and Ridecell said there will be further advancements coming from the collaboration, such as on-demand vehicle rentals at stations, predictive maintenance powered by telematics and artificial intelligdence, live tracking for transportation functions and dynamic supply-and-demand management, which aim to integrate short- and long-term fleet management.