Fleet and mobility operations are often evaluated by what customers see: deliveries completed, rides fulfilled, vehicles available, and service levels maintained.
But behind every smooth operation is a team making thousands of decisions across vehicles, drivers, tasks, routes, vendors, workflows, infrastructure, and demand. These teams are managing constant change while working to improve utilization, reduce manual work, control costs, and keep the operation running predictably.
That is why Autofleet created the Optimizers Awards.
The Optimizers Awards recognize the fleet and mobility operators turning operational complexity into measurable business impact. They celebrate the people and teams using fleet automation and AI-powered fleet operations to build more resilient, efficient, and scalable businesses.
"What made these winners stand out wasn't just the results they achieved, but the creativity and operational discipline behind them," said Sima Megrel Shubzak, VP Marketing at Autofleet.
The awards also highlight a larger industry shift: optimization is no longer just an efficiency initiative. It is becoming a strategic growth driver.
Nominations came from fleet and mobility operators around the world, representing a wide range of industries, operating models, and fleet sizes. From large-scale logistics networks and postal operations to shared mobility, ride hailing, carsharing, community transit, and electrification initiatives, the submissions reflected the full diversity of modern fleet operations. What connected them was not company size or geography, but a shared commitment to improving how fleets run: with more control, better utilization, smarter automation, and more predictable execution.
At Autofleet, this is closely connected to our own values. We believe operators should have control over complexity, confidence in their decisions, and predictable execution. The winners of the 2026 Optimizers Awards represent exactly that.
"What made these winners stand out wasn't just the results they achieved, but the creativity and operational discipline behind them," said Sima Megrel Shubzak, VP Marketing at Autofleet. "Every fleet operator faces the same challenge: how to create reliability in an environment filled with constant change. The winners demonstrate what is possible when operational excellence becomes a strategic advantage,” added Sima.
What’s Behind the Optimizers Awards
Fleet operations are some of the most complex operating environments in the world. Plans shift, demand changes, vehicles move, constraints appear, and teams are expected to keep everything running without disruption.
Too often, the people behind that execution do not get the spotlight they deserve.
The Optimizers Awards recognize the operators who make modern fleet performance possible. These are the teams replacing manual processes with automation, improving asset utilization, scaling operations without adding unnecessary complexity, and creating systems that can adapt in real time.
Today, optimizations affect cost structure, service reliability, customer experience, sustainability, scalability, and long-term readiness.
The 2026 winners show what happens when operational excellence becomes a business advantage.
Here are our winners for 2026:
Best Route Optimization: USPS
USPS received the Best Route Optimization award for leading one of the largest transportation network transformations in the world.
By rebuilding its logistics network with advanced optimization and real-time operational data, USPS reduced transportation spend by $1.7 billion and cut unplanned trips by 40%, while supporting record freight volumes and maintaining service performance.
This award reflects what strong route optimization is meant to deliver: plans that work in the real world, and resilient execution even when facing huge volumes.
Read the full Q&A with Peter Routsolias, of USPS
Rising Star in Mobility Operations: DPD UK
DPD UK received the Rising Star in Mobility Operations award for establishing a dedicated Utilization Team.
The initiative increased peak utilization of its vans and LCV fleet from 76% to 84% and enabled the decommissioning of over 900 vehicles.
This is a powerful example of how focused utilization work can create strategic impact. By understanding where capacity was being underused and acting on it, DPD UK improved performance without simply adding more assets.
The result was not just a leaner fleet. It was a more confident operating model, built on better visibility, stronger planning, and measurable fleet optimization.
Read the full Q&A with Gary Lewis, of DPD UK
Best Fleet Operations: Zipcar
Zipcar received the Best Fleet Operations award for transforming vehicle cleaning operations through AI-powered automation.
The initiative streamlined vehicle cleaning workflows and reduced manual intervention. This way, Zipcar improved fleet readiness, increased vehicle availability for members, and enabled field teams to focus more time on delivering a high-quality member experience.
For any fleet operation and especially for shared mobility, availability is central to customer experience. Every unnecessary downtime event creates friction, lost revenue, and operational pressure.
Zipcar’s work shows how AI-powered fleet operations can improve daily execution by removing repetitive manual decisions and helping teams focus on exceptions that matter most. The result is a calmer, more predictable operation that improves vehicle availability at scale.
Read the full Q&A with Jon Tyburski, of Zipcar
Fleet Optimization Pioneers: Dollaride
Dollaride received the Fleet Optimization Pioneers award for developing an EV-as-a-Service model that simplifies fleet electrification for community transit operators.
By combining vehicles, routing, charging infrastructure, financing, and parking into a single offering, Dollaride created a practical pathway to EV adoption while reducing operating costs and emissions.
Electrification is a challenge for many fleet operators today. But for smaller or community-based operators, the challenge is not only the vehicle. It is the full operating system around the vehicle: charging, infrastructure, financing, parking, planning, and day-to-day execution.
Dollaride’s model stands out because it turns a complex transition into an achievable operating pathway. It reflects one of the most important ideas in fleet management optimization: preparing for tomorrow while keeping today’s operation moving.
Read the full Q&A with Su Sanni, of Dollaride
AI-Powered Operations: Karmo
Karmo received the AI-Powered Operations award for demonstrating how technology-enabled operations can support rapid growth at scale. The company has managed to more than double its fleet size while increasing utilization from 89% to 91%, and successfully integrated an acquisition.
Growth often introduces complexity. More vehicles, more locations, more processes, and more exceptions can quickly make operations harder to control. Karmo showed that with the right operating model, growth does not have to create chaos.
By using AI-driven operational decision-making, Karmo improved utilization while scaling. That is the kind of operational discipline that allows teams to expand without losing visibility, control, or confidence.
Read the full Q&A with Laura Harewood, of Karmo
The Impact Award: Kari Ride Hailing
Kari Ride Hailing received the Impact Award for building one of the industry’s most efficient operating models. The organization manages more than 250,000 rides annually with no dispatchers and a part-time operations team of just two people. All by using automation and intelligent workflows to deliver reliable service at scale.
Kari’s achievement is a clear example of how automation can empower lean teams. The story is not only about doing more with less. It is about building an operation where workflows, decisions, and execution are structured well enough that the business can scale without relying on constant manual intervention.
This is what operational empowerment looks like in practice: a small team with the ability to manage meaningful volume, improve service delivery, and keep the operation running reliably.
Read the full Q&A with Matt MacLeod, of Kari Ride Hailing
What the Winners Have in Common
The 2026 Optimizers Awards winners represent different types of fleet and mobility operations, but they share a common operating mindset. They are not treating optimization as a one-time project. They are using it as an ongoing way to improve performance.
They are bringing control to complex networks. They are creating clarity across daily decisions. They are making operations more predictable. And they are empowering teams to improve, not just maintain.
That alignment is exactly why Autofleet created the Optimizers Awards. As an AI-powered fleet management optimization platform, Autofleet helps operators orchestrate vehicles, drivers, tasks, routes, workflows, and demand through one intelligent operating layer. The goal is to help teams maximize utilization, automate workflows, reduce operational noise, and make data-backed decisions they trust in real time. Full control over every operational need.
Winners That Show What the Future of Mobility Looks Like
USPS showed the power of route optimization at a national scale. DPD UK showed the business value of utilization improvement. Zipcar showed how AI-powered automation can improve availability. Dollaride showed how fleet optimization can support a community. Karmo showed how AI-enabled operations can scale. And Kari showed how intelligent workflows can help lean teams deliver outsized impact.
Together, they prove that modern fleet operations are not just about keeping up with change. They are about building systems that improve through change.
Every winner demonstrates a different version of the same idea: when operators have the right systems, data, automation, and optimization capabilities, they can turn complexity into confident execution.
That is the future Autofleet believes in.
A future where fleet operators are not chasing the operation, but guiding it. Where teams are not relying on heroics, but on systems that support predictable execution. Where optimization is not only about efficiency, but about control, confidence, resilience, sustainability, and growth.
Congratulations to the winners of the 2026 Optimizers Awards!
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