At their core, every business seeks to maximise profits and reduce costs. If your organisation has a vehicle fleet, there’s a good chance it’s costing a fair amount of money to keep running. GPS fleet tracking can provide the necessary data that will reduce costs and save your business money.

Fuel use

Fuel is the number one cost when operating a fleet. It makes up more than 60% of a fleet’s operating budget. Reducing fuel use is one of the easiest ways Fleet Managers can reduce the cost of their fleets.

Fuel cards are a popular method of tracking fuel usage. This is a great top-level way to understand how much fuel each vehicle has used. But it lacks the ability to provide deeper insights into how those fuel costs are generated and if there are any opportunities to reduce fuel consumption.

Here are three ways that Fleet Managers can reduce the fuel use of their fleets:

1. Driver Behaviour and Education - It should come as no surprise that a driver with a lead foot will consume more fuel. Often these drivers aren’t aware that their driving style is having a direct impact on the company's bottom line. GPS tracking gives Fleet Managers the data to proactively engage with staff who aren’t driving appropriately. By making drivers aware of their behaviour, Fleet Managers can undertake driver education in order to change driving styles and reduce fuel consumption. Smartrak’s fleet management system gives managers the ability to monitor individual driver behaviour. This includes key elements such as over-speeding and overdriving (high G-force cornering, and excessive braking).
2. Job Allocation and Routing - GPS tracking provides an organisation with an accurate understanding of where all fleet assets are located. This can be incredibly handy when allocating jobs to workers in the field because you can easily see how far away drivers are to the new job. More efficient allocations mean reduced distance travelled and less fuel consumed – not to mention, less travel time for staff.
3. GIS Overlay - Businesses often have data and locations that may not be easily searchable on a standard map. However, these data points can easily be uploaded into the Smartrak map as separate Geographic Information System (GIS) layers. Through the use of the Smartrak APIs, these GIS overlays can be integrated into Smartrak’s map interface and jobs routed to points of interest based off the GIS data.

Vehicle utilisation

Another way business can save money is through improved vehicle utilisation. This has the goal of reducing your fleet size while maximising vehicle usage and is achieved by removing unnecessary vehicles which eliminates the costs associated with ownership and maintenance.

By taking advantage of improved efficiencies in job allocation and GPS tracking, you’ll be able to use vehicle utilisation data to identify underutilised resources such as:

1. Minimising the fleet size - This may include selling unused or underutilised vehicles or making the decision not to purchase unnecessary vehicles in the future.
2. Leveraging under-utilised vehicles - An example of this is when vehicles are in for maintenance and servicing. Rather than hiring a vehicle that may not be suitable for the job, workers can instead be allocated an underutilised vehicle. This saves on rental costs as well as the hassle of using a vehicle without an appropriate fit out (racking etc.).

Insurance

Accidents are a reality of fleet management. Without the ability to analyse driving data, you’re open to the risk of opposing parties making false claims.

Smartrak’s telematics system provides the peace of mind that when you must deal with an accident, you have logs that can prove your side of the story – potentially saving your company thousands in claims pay-outs.

But accidents aren’t the only risk of owning vehicles. In instances of theft, having GPS tracking integrated in vehicles means you can easily track the location of the vehicle. This can assist authorities in re-claiming your vehicle and minimising the impact of downtime on business operations.

FBT compliance and log booking

FBT compliance and log booking can be a pain to maintain, especially in large fleets with paper-based logs.

Users can use Smartrak’s fleet management system to allocate trips for either personal or work purposes. This saves your staff from having to enter paper logs manually for any FBT claims. It also makes the process easy. Your staff are more likely to use it and the data will be more accurate. This can in turn maximise your potential FBT claims.