Fuel accounts for 31% of operational costs in trucking. In a low-margin business like trucking, the effect of lowering fuel consumption by 5% can increase profitability by as much as 18%.
Reducing fuel consumption in your fleet is a never-ending challenge requiring sustained effort in driver training and feedback, vehicle maintenance, monitoring and management. The impact of better fuel economy hits the bottom line immediately, freeing up resources for investment in the fleet, and in other parts of your organization. Driver behavior is the number one factor in fuel consumption and bad driving behaviour can increase fuel expenses between 5-15%. The good news is that this behavior can be corrected with access to accurate and timely GPS/AVL fleet intelligence and positive, bottom-line impacts can be seen fairly soon upon implementing minor corrections.
Idling:
Unnecessary idling is the largest factor in how much fuel a fleet wastes. Idling for long periods of time – whether at a job site, a railroad crossing or pulled off to the side of the road– wastes fuel that could be saved by simply turning off the engine. 60 minutes of idling time is equal to 80-120 minutes of driving time and idling wastes one gallon of gas per hour. Reducing idle time by 10% can result in a 10-20% increase in fuel efficiency. Regulations at every level of government seek to reduce idling for both personal and commercial vehicles. Also, as in other regulated segments of the transportation industries, penalties can be steep. A GPS/AVL fleet management solution can allow fleet managers to track fleet idling times and set alerts every time a vehicle exceeds a pre-determined idle-time threshold. Fleet managers can in turn, use this information to correct wasteful behaviors and lower overall fuel consumption.
Speeding:
If you’re not burning dollars while standing still, then chances are you’re burning them by going too fast. It’s a well-known, well-documented fact that speeding has a negative impact on fuel consumption. Studies have shown that reducing driver speed can lower fuel consumption by up-to 14%. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), each 5 miles per hour driven above the speed limit has the net effect of increasing the cost of a gallon of gas by twenty cents.
Telematics solutions can provide automatic driver performance reports designed to show the percentage of time that each driver is speeding over defined thresholds. These reports give you all the visibility you need into what speeding is costing your organization. You can then use the reports to educate your drivers, devise policies to incentivize reduced driving speeds and to monitor performance improvements over time to entrench lower driving speeds.
Driver Behavior:
The way an individual drives a vehicle has a big impact on the overall fuel economy of the vehicle. While driver behavior would seem to be one of the factors most under our control, the reality is that it is hard to change people’s habits. The most effective way to obtain long –term driver behavior change is through training, ongoing monitoring and feedback.
GPS/AVL Fleet Management Solutions:
When a fleet is on the road, managers and office staff cannot know exactly where their vehicles are without constantly contacting the drivers. This lack of knowledge leads to inefficient dispatching: vehicles far from the next customer site are often chosen to respond over vehicles which are much closer, wasting time and fuel.
GPS/AVL Fleet Management solutions deliver a wide-range of benefits, not the least of which is the ability to achieve greater fuel economy.
Would you like to start increasing your fuel economy using accurate, relevant data derived directly from your fleet of drivers? Let’s talk!