Government Fleet Cost Calculator

Yes, if your roster mixes light sedans with heavy trucks or specialized equipment, treating the whole fleet as one blended average can distort the estimate meaningfully, since a handful of expensive dump trucks pull Avg Fuel Cost/Vehicle/Year and New Vehicle Cost well above what a typical patrol car actually needs. Entering each vehicle class through the calculator on its own and adding the resulting Total Annual Fleet Cost figures together produces a far more defensible line item than lumping every vehicle type into a single average.

The reserve spreads the cost of eventually replacing every vehicle in the fleet evenly across the number of years in the Replacement Cycle, so a longer cycle (say, 12 years instead of 8) divides that same total replacement cost across more years and lowers the annual set-aside, while a shorter cycle concentrates it into fewer years and raises the annual figure.

No -- Annual Replacement Reserve is calculated purely from Vehicle Count, New Vehicle Cost, and Replacement Cycle; fuel spending never enters that formula at all. Fuel and maintenance costs are tracked as separate line items precisely because they represent ongoing operating expenses, distinct from the capital-planning question of how much to set aside each year for eventually replacing the fleet.

The calculator doesn't account for financing or interest costs if replacement vehicles are purchased with debt, the salvage or trade-in value recovered from retired vehicles (which would offset the replacement reserve somewhat), insurance, or the fact that real fleets rarely replace vehicles in a perfectly smooth annual stream -- most agencies buy in batches tied to budget cycles or grant funding.