In these unthinkable days of $4 gas prices, every company providing GPS-based tracking services is promising to slash your fuel bills. And while it’s true that knowing the location of your vehicles will lead to increased efficiency, that knowledge is only the first step towards building a strategy to effectively understand and optimize your fleet’s fuel usage in the long term.
Make sure that the GPS tracking provider you choose to work with has the resources and experience to help you build such a strategy. As a minimum, they should have a plan for dealing with the following aspects of your business:
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Idling – An hour’s worth of idling can use up 1-1.75 gallons of fuel in typical commercial vehicles. But having the ability to measure this idle time alone won’t help you translate it into savings - you need to know where the idling events are occurring. A GPS tracking service should provide you with reports that can identify the location of the idling events along with the time, and help you to analyze the information so you can determine which patterns are wasteful.
Routing - As little as 4 miles "off-route" can translate to a gallon of fuel wasted. When evaluating GPS tracking vendors, make sure you will be able to use location-based information to plan and create new routes, as well as analyze historical ones. Detailed vehicle activity reports should be available to show “productive” vs. “unproductive” stops, so that you can identify patterns of excess. At today’s fuel prices, can you afford to be paying for driving not related to work?
Maintenance management – The U.S. Department of Energy reports that simple vehicle maintenance can have a major impact on fuel costs over time: keep tires properly inflated and aligned improves gas mileage by 3.3 percent, and replacing clogged air filters by as much as 10 percent. Excessive speeding can lower highway gas mileage by as much as 30 percent. A good vehicle tracking service offers the ability to manage and schedule maintenance as part of a complete fleet management solution.
A deep cut requires more than just a Band-aid. With no sign of the gas price crisis letting up soon, simple vehicle location information is not enough to reduce your fuel costs. You need to be able to analyze the performance of your mobile workforce from every angle to see where you could be more efficient and more productive.
Navtrak, located in Salisbury, Md., provides GPS tracking systems, fleet management solutions and car tracking devices for businesses with mobile workforces. For more information, call 800/787-2337 or e-mail sales@navtrak.net.