Safety, fuel, maintenance, and labor inefficiencies are some of the guiltiest offenders when it comes to rising fleet costs.
As a fleet manager, your job is more than just making sure the vehicles are locked up every night. You are not only responsible for taking care of your fleet and your drivers, but making sure you are getting every ounce of production from your team.
Rising fuel costs continue to make fleet management a challenging position, but those who choose to use GPS tracking devices to generate telemetry data for better management make the challenge easier to answer.
Did you know that the above four areas are those that you can target to help lower your fuel costs and cut costs?
These four are usually the biggest cost centers for fleets, and the good news is fleet managers utilizing telematics can easily cust down and improve these areas.
Here are some examples:
Improve safety, improve your bottom line
Aggressive driving, distracted driving, not wearing a safety belt — we can all agree that these behaviors are recipes for disaster. The results of unsafe driving can include collisions, increased vehicle wear and tear, higher insurance premiums, fuel waste and liability costs that could reach hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Here’s where telematics can come to the rescue. Driver safety scorecards can help identify the riskiest drivers, giving you the opportunity to correct their behavior before an incident occurs.
The benefits of having a safety-conscious fleet — backed by a robust telematics solution — are many. You’ll keep and retain the best drivers, minimize non-productive downtime and foster a good public image.
Fuel costs
Built on a foundation of GPS, fleet telematics can make inefficient routing a thing of the past. And while you’re monitoring and addressing unsafe driving behaviors – such as aggressive driving – you’ll also make a dent in fuel-wasting behaviors. For example, driving just five miles an hour over the speed limit can waste up to 28 cents per gallon — pennies that will add up fast.
Telematics can also give you important information on other fuel insights – including potential fuel theft – by monitoring when and where a driver is filling up.
Need the big picture of your fleet’s fuel spend or how you stack up against your competitors? Telematics can provide insights including monthly fuel trends and apples-to-apples industry benchmarking reports. You’ll have even more insights into potential areas of fuel waste that can help save more across the entire fleet.
Maintenance
Telematics can optimize your fleet maintenance program in three ways:
- By establishing a comprehensive preventative maintenance program, you can schedule routine repairs – such as oil changes or tire rotations – when they will impact day-to-day operations the least.
- By monitoring vehicle health through your telematics solution, you’ll be alerted to fault codes or other signs of an emergent maintenance and safety issue before it becomes a budget-draining headache, avoiding significant costs and downtime.
- Running vehicles until the proverbial wheels fall off is a wasteful approach to vehicle maintenance and fleet efficiency. With the aid of telematics, you can accurately time when a vehicle needs to be replaced — saving the costs related to maintaining a vehicle when it exceeds the replacement cost.
Productivity
Need to improve driver and vehicle productivity? Telematics can help with that, too.
Is your driver taking too long at the job? Using optimized routing and time on the job reports, you may find that you can add another job onto a driver’s daily schedule — directly increasing revenue. This also helps show your customers that you are committed to improving and optimizing appointment times, helping increase brand loyalty.
What this all means for fleet managers
Simply put, using GPS tracking devices with your fleet is going to help you save money on fuel costs, save money on expensive maintenance, save money on unsafe driving outcomes, and make more money with enhanced productivity.
If you would like to learn more about how using GPS tracking Devices from GPS to GO, an Authorized Geotab reseller, can help improve your business, click on this link to get started.
