3 Ways to Improve Fleet Efficiency

Fleet efficiency used to be something organizations needed to strive for but is now becoming a necessity. Businesses that rely on a large fleet have seen their operating costs soar overnight unexpectedly. Those who were operating on razor-thin margins and were managing their fleets poorly have been hit the worst, but all businesses will need to keep a close eye on their fleets from now on if they want to survive and thrive. Let’s take a look at a few ways to improve fleet efficiency.

Unleash the Power of Telematics

If you haven’t implemented telematics in your organization or public fleet, you need to do so right away. It will allow you to get the most out of your employees but also keep a close eye on the health status of your vehicles

The best way to improve the efficiency of your fleet is to monitor the behavior of your driver. And the only way to do this accurately is by using telematics.

Telematics solutions give you a clear view of what your drivers are doing at all times. It also allows you to log distances they’ve traveled and the way they’ve been driving. You can track every stop they made, how long they’ve been letting their vehicle sit idle, or how fast they accelerate. You could even see how many lane changes they’ve made.

At first glance, some of this information might seem irrelevant until you can start seeing clear outliers. Seeing that one of your drivers makes way more lane changes than the rest might show that they’re aggressive. Something small like that could allow you to spot drivers who might be a liability or run up your costs because of their driving.

If you haven’t implemented telematics in your organization, you need to do so right away. It will allow you to get the most out of your employees, but also keep a close eye on the health status of your vehicles.

Leave a Clear Line of Communication with Team Members

You should also try to be in constant contact with your drivers. Most fleet management platforms will have an app that allows drivers to relay information to you and vice versa. This would allow drivers to do things like report issues, complete inspections, and update vehicle status in real-time.

Using an app will also help managers who can’t afford to stay at a desk. All the information about your fleet could fit on your mobile and give you the freedom of movement you need. So, if your current fleet management system doesn’t have an app that allows you to do this, look for one that does.

Focus on Preventative Maintenance

You need to keep breakdowns to a minimum, and poorly managed fleets experience breakdowns more often than they should. Have a proactive approach to maintenance. 

Have routine checks performed periodically and have a clear schedule. You can manage and create maintenance schedules from your fleet management system and get alerts whenever a vehicle is due for a check. Just doing this alone will make breakdowns much more predictable and might almost eliminate them.

These are all things that you can do to make your fleet more efficient. Follow these tips to the letter and use all the tools at your disposal the right way.

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