Company fleets, mobility gets on the board: the fleet manager no longer decides alone
The Barometer 2026 conducted by Arval Mobility Observatory shows that the game is no longer only about cars: governance, data and charging strategy count. But two out of three companies are still in the early stages of maturity
The fleet manager no longer decides alone. In Italian companies, mobility has come out of the operational enclosure and has become a board matter: Ceo, procurement, finance, HR and sustainability now weigh in on fleet choices. This is the paradigm shift that emerges from Barometer 2026 by Arval Mobility Observatory in collaboration with Ipsos, which describes the transition "from operational control to decision mediation". A scenario also confirmed by the roles of the players involved: among the Italian respondents to the survey, in fact, CEOs account for 24%, fleet and mobility managers for 23%, followed by procurement at 16%, CFOs at 14% and HR at 7%.
Translated: the fleet is no longer just a cost centre to be administered, but a balancing point between different and often competing objectives. The report makes it clear: mobility is transforming from an operational function into a cross-functional management lever, and the fleet manager increasingly finds himself mediating between economic, environmental and organisational requirements. It is a change that is less visible than electrification, but probably more profound.
The priorities, after all, are clear. Over the next three years, companies indicate as major challenges the adaptation to thermal vehicle policies, the introduction of alternative fuels and the containment of total cost of ownership (TCO). However, there is no straightforward solution: the Barometer photographs a system under pressure, called upon to keep standards, costs and business continuity together.
The second piece of news is that the transition is less about the car model and much more about charging management. The report is explicit: the spread of electrified vehicles is not held back by technology, but by the ability of companies to govern the 'charging policy', as if to say that 'electrification comes from charging, not the vehicle'. In this context, 82% of companies have already considered or will consider on-site charging infrastructure, 64% are looking at public charging and 26% at home charging.
Even on data the message is clear. Telematics is adopted by 44% of companies, but it is used above all for day-to-day fleet management; its use as a structured lever for deciding car policy, fuelling and reporting remains weaker. And it is precisely here that the quantum leap is measured: not in the availability of data, but in its ability to enter decision-making processes.
