Did you know? Companies that implement a GPS tracking system have seen their fleet fuel cost reduced by up to 30%.
One of the most immediate, profitable, and easy-to-measure benefits of implementing a GPS tracking system is the ability to reduce fuel usage. The profitability of your business can be affected by fuel cost and with constant fluctuations in gas prices it’s important to keep an eye on factors that affect fuel consumption.
We’ve outlined five ways that a GPS tracking system ensures that you see an improvement in your fleet’s fuel usage.
Report displaying totals for aggressive driving
1 – Reduce Excessive Idling
Idling wastes fuel, and chances are that many of your company vehicles idle for longer than they need to. An average truck uses 1L of fuel for every 15 minutes of idling, so 60 minutes of idling a week would equal 1,460L per year, or over $1,500!
While a recent government of Canada FleetSmart study reported that only 30% of trucking fleets in Canada use add-ons to reduce idling, a fuel management system enables you to monitor actions, situations or events that can result in the excessive use of fuel and address them before they get out of control.
2 – Control Speeding
Speeding uses more fuel, and every 10 km over 100 km/hr decreases fuel economy by 10%. Keep in mind: the more your drivers speed, the higher your fuel bill will be. Fleet Complete includes a database of speed limits that you can use to identify when and how much your drivers speed. With reporting, you can determine the scope of the problem and start working on changing behavior.
3 – Optimize Maintenance
Using automated maintenance alerts can help you maintain your vehicles in peak condition, where they get their best gas mileage. Fleet Complete’s maintenance module tracks service needs based on miles driven or engine-on times and alerts you when a particular vehicle needs service. Service alerts can help save fuel and reduce your maintenance costs at the same time.
4 – Find Better Routes
With GPS Tracking systems, your dispatchers can dispatch the closest driver/vehicle, determine the most efficient routes to a customer call/delivery, and route drivers around traffic and other problems. You can eliminate unnecessary miles driven and reduce the time spent idling in traffic. You can save fuel and increase productivity at the same time. Our Dispatch solution leverage the fuel cost matrix to address the impact of fluctuating fuel prices on driver pay and client fuel charges.
Planning ahead and organizing your routing more efficiently results in better daily mileage. With GPS fleet management; you can easily map out routes in advance to take into account shorter drives, allowing your drivers to get from point A to point B as quickly as possible.
Unnecessary driving results in more fuel burned, but you can set your fleet up for fuel saving success by avoiding congested streets and taking shortcuts that cut down on both idling and driving time.
“With this intuitive system we can exercise greater control over our fleet. We also have increased operational flexibility because we can determine how our vehicles are being used and that they are being used safely,”
– Mike Sample, HSE Manager
5 – Prevent Unauthorized and “off-hours” Use
Knowing the exact location of your vehicles at all times, gives you the ability to reduce unauthorized usage. A GPS fleet management system can establish normal work areas and times to alert you if a vehicle is being used outside of those parameters. These time-of-use and geofencing alerts allow you to keep eyes on your vehicles at all times to ensure that your drivers aren’t wasting your fuel for personal use.
Tracking the Savings
By using a system like Fleet Complete Fleet Tracker solution to actively manage personal use, maintenance, speed, and idling, you will see a real difference in your fleet fuel consumption. Sure, most of your employees use your vehicles responsibly, but they might not be aware how much a behavior like speeding affects your fuel costs. Systems like Fleet Complete can help you with that and more!
Remember, by closely monitoring the driving habits of your employees and coaching them to reduce speeding, idling and aggressive driving, you will decrease your company’s fuel costs and increase your profitability.
Get in touch with one of our experts and see what the system can do for your business!
