Fleet management: A challenging world?

Fleet Managers today are under pressure to minimize fleet costs, but many do not have the necessary information at their fingertips to make informed decisions. Fleet management technology provides managers with the tools they need to better manage their drivers and vehicles on a daily basis. Such information, together with the appropriate follow-up by management, can help achieve notable cost savings. The key challenges that fleet manager’s face on a daily basis include:

Unnecessary Driver Idling

While Fleet Manager’s recognize unnecessary idling can be a significant contribution to those excessive operating costs, not all Fleet Managers know the extent of their fleet idling or what areas they should focus on.  The Geotab solution can enable Fleet Managers to:

• Visualize total fleet idling
• Measure idling in the yard, at customer stops, drop off locations
• Understand idling as a percentage of total engine time
• Monitor weekly and monthly idling trends with easy to use custom reports

Fleet Managers equipped with this knowledge can more easily identify the drivers, vehicles, and locations that exceed acceptable levels of idling and take corrective action. Reducing unnecessary idling is a simple way to reduce fuel costs.

Repairs and Maintenance

Fleet repairs and vehicle downtime are an expensive cost that Fleet Managers deal with on a daily basis. Managing these costs can be a major challenge. Using the Geotab solution Fleet Managers can:

• View vehicle diagnostic trouble codes right from a desktop or mobile device
• Identify potential vehicle issues in a timely manner which can assist in prioritizing repairs
• Set up regular maintenance reminders

When Fleet Managers act on this information, they can more efficiently manage vehicle maintenance and identify vehicle issues before they become major repairs. This can help reduce major repair costs and vehicle downtime which is an integral part to all operations. In addition, regular maintenance on vehicles can potentially prolong the life of major vehicle parts as well as increase the longevity of a vehicle.

Fleet Productivity

Are you getting the most out of your fleet? Maximizing one’s fleet potential is a goal that Fleet Managers continuously aim to achieve.  Geotab’s fleet management solution can provide great insight into the productivity of a fleet:

• Fleet utilization visibility
• Number of customer stops made in a day
• Time spent at the office versus customer site
• Real time dispatch and ability to identify nearest vehicle to a location
• Driver’s congregating reporting
• Routing

Knowing the utilization of vehicles and gaining insight into the routes taken each day can help management recognize where changes are needed to improve the efficiencies of the fleet and avoid unnecessary miles driven. Having access to such valuable information can help Fleet Managers make more informed decisions on new vehicle purchases. For example, vehicles identified as not in use can be re-assigned to locations that require additional vehicles, thus sometimes eliminating the need to make unnecessary big purchases.

Contact Geotab to learn more about this topic, or schedule an online demo to see the solution work in action.