Fleet vehicle downtime falls to lowest level since before pandemic

Fleet vehicle downtime has dropped to its lowest level since before the Covid-19 pandemic, according to new figures released by epyx, signalling potential improvement in long-running supply chain and servicing pressures affecting UK fleets.

Data from the company’s industry-standard 1link Service Network service, maintenance and repair (SMR) platform showed that average vehicle downtime fell to 1.46 days in January 2026, 1.47 days in February and 1.53 days in March.

The figures represent the lowest monthly downtime levels recorded since January 2020, when vehicles spent an average of 1.54 days off the road before the onset of the pandemic.

Fleet downtime increased sharply in the years following Covid-19 as operators faced a combination of supply chain disruption, parts shortages, technician shortages and increased workshop demand. Downtime peaked at 1.83 days in May 2023 before gradually easing.

Although downtime improved to 1.57 days in January 2025, figures remained volatile throughout much of last year, fluctuating between 1.68 and 1.77 days before rising again to 1.83 days in November and 1.91 days in December.

Tim Meadows, CCO at epyx, said the latest data could indicate meaningful progress across the fleet servicing sector.

“Downtime has been a major problem for fleets since the pandemic, something caused by a number of factors,” Meadows said. “These include operating generally older vehicles, difficulties obtaining parts, a shortage of skilled technicians and higher demands on workshop capacity – all of which have meant that cars and vans have been spending longer off the road.”

He added that while fleet operators and service providers had worked to minimise disruption, improvements over recent years had been “slow and erratic.”

“Q1’s figures suggest there may be a marked improvement underway, which would be very good news,” Meadows said.

However, he cautioned against assuming the issue had been fully resolved.

“It’s much too early, we believe, to say these three months of figures mean issues with downtime have effectively been sorted,” he said. “We could well see further volatility in future data. There are many variables in play that could have a negative effect.”

epyx’s 1link Service Network platform is widely used across the UK fleet sector to manage service, maintenance and repair activity. The system processes almost 20,000 SMR job sheets every day for fleets totalling approximately 4.9 million vehicles, working with a network of more than 8,500 suppliers.