Fleet Tracking
Additional Add-on Services
Feb 22, 2021
Vehicle tracking devices can be extremely beneficial to a fleet manager. Benefits include: saving businesses valuable time, improving fleet efficiency, driver safety and customer service; hence reducing business overheads. All these benefits are possible with fleet tracking — providing you possess some basic knowledge required to make the most of your vehicle tracking reports.
Keep reading to find out how you can use your vehicle tracking reports to maximise safety and efficiency, cut costs and improve your services.
Before jumping straight into how to make the most of them, let's first take a look at what we include in our vehicle tracking reports:
There are many reasons you may wish to improve your fleet efficiency! Saving money, reducing driver stress, and increasing sustainability — especially as consumers are becoming more aware of services' ethical and environmental impacts.
Features of the report such as Vehicle Activity include information about when a vehicle stops and starts, idling, speeding and when a driver is too harsh with the brake and accelerator pedals.
The way your drivers behave whilst driving the vehicle can significantly impact petrol or diesel consumption. Idling consumes a large amount of fuel — according to Confused.com drivers burn between 1.077 to 2.13 ounces of fuel for every minute spent idling (0.5 to 1.0 gallon every hour). Similarly, drivers who are excessively harsh on the accelerator and brakes use more fuel than those who drive smoothly, making their driving much less efficient.
You can look back on any journey since the tracker was installed using the Journey History feature to analyse the data. Driver behaviour data can allow you to introduce driver training to reduce driving mistakes — all of which make your business less efficient.
According to the Energy Saving Trust, through higher productivity and increased vehicle utilisation, operating costs can fall by 10% every year and fuel use by 15%.
Furthermore, as the government aims to reduce global warming, carbon reports become necessary as part of annual results. By improving vehicle efficiency and fuel economy, you can reduce your business' total carbon emissions.
Ensuring your fleet operates productively is an essential part of fleet management. An unproductive fleet can cost your business time and money that adds up in the long run. Features of vehicle tracking such as Detailed Journey History, Advanced Mapping, and Driver Summary allow for productivity improvements. Also, the added ability to see all fleet vehicles is at any given time will enable you to boost fleet productivity and save time.
Advanced Mapping allows you to plot specific journeys on a map — ensuring drivers are taking the quickest routes possible and not wasting time on longer routes. Live updates enable you to re-route a driver if they become lost or approach heavy traffic — saving both fuel and time.
Reviewing your drivers' behaviour can save your business lots of time and money. Driver Summary can provide you with all of the information you need to improve their driving style and save time — reducing idling and only taking the required steps.
Not only can you increase the productivity of drivers, but you can also save time by reducing many tedious administration tasks via Fleetsmart's Detailed Journey History. Filling out drivers' timesheets or fuel information is no longer required. All data relating to driver stop and start times and information about the vehicles is accessible via any internet-connected device.
One of the main advantages of using fleet tracking products is the ability to save money. As mentioned previously, you can use vehicle reports to save time, improve efficiency, boost productivity, and save time, helping your business save money.
The first way you can save money with vehicle reports is by putting an end to excess travel, unnecessary stops and poor driving. By monitoring drivers activity via real-time vehicle reports and journey replay — you can pinpoint exactly where your vehicles travelled and where engine on/offs occurred. This data can then be used to improve efficiency; you could be considerable savings by cutting fuel costs and only paying for what is required.
According to Company Bug, business mileage is the most considerable expense for UK businesses — with 2 million employees making 10 billion business mileage claims each year. A 2019 study by Flexed revealed that over 89% of those claims are inaccurate, costing companies £1.6 billion every year. Journey reports allow for the calculation of accurate mileage claims — drawing clear lines between work/private journeys can cut fuel costs by up to 20% every month.
Ensuring that your drivers are recording their time/journeys accurately also allows managers to end the overpayment of employee wages. Ensuring taking the quickest routes are taken and cutting out any inefficiencies such as making multiple unnecessary stops along the way via through journey reports also helps with this. In doing so, you can avoid overpaying wages and raise concerns with employees who may be clocking off early!
Driver Summary and Vehicle Activity Reports include speeding and harsh braking information — displaying visibility of poor driving incidents, which may lead to potential accidents. Vehicle tracking often acts as a deterrent to drivers who may be inclined to speed and therefore reduces the risk of accidents by making drivers more responsible. Journey History can also be used to identify when drivers are not driving safely — leading disciplinary measures or training to reduce the risk of accidents.
Extra training can be provided relating to defensive driving techniques, wearing a seatbelt, adjusting mirrors and becoming familiar with vehicle controls. Alternatively, more detailed instruction may be given toward the road rules — not flashing to give way to someone, driving fatigue and anticipating sweeping turns in larger vehicles. For more tips on defensive driving techniques, why not read our guide on How to Avoid Accidents: Defensive Driving Techniques.
Unfortunately, not all training and regulations can prepare drivers for what may happen whilst on the job. Fleetsmart vehicle tracking allows you to view driver locations at all times — what may be the only source of information should other means of communication be lost.
Customer service is one of the most critical considerations of running a business. Unhappy customers are unlikely to use your service again; taking their custom elsewhere. Ensuring you aren't just providing the bare minimum, but going above and beyond to make their experience better is essential.
Allowing customers to view location and track their delivery, including an estimated arrival time offers greater convenience. They can ensure either they or a neighbour is available to receive the parcel — going above and beyond and makes delivery services such as Royal Mail and Hermes so popular.
With real-time updates on vehicle locations, you can improve customer service by providing your customers with more information. E.g. a way of tracking their delivery or providing updates on when their parcel is likely to arrive.
For more information and tips, why not check out the rest of our help and advice centre, or get in touch by calling 01942 356333.