Fleet management refers to the systems and processes used to control and optimise the operations, compliance, maintenance, and overall performance of a company’s fleet of commercial vehicles. It aims to reduce costs, improve efficiency, and increase productivity. Fleet management comprises different tasks to keep vehicles and operations running smoothly and efficiently.
Managing a commercial vehicle truck involves using technology and software solutions to help lower costs, enforce driver safety, minimise risks, increase productivity, and schedule preventative maintenance to reduce downtime.
What is fleet management?
Fleet management is defined as various processes that manage a fleet of vehicles or related assets, optimising efficiency while minimising costs and risk. Fleet managers control costs, maximise productivity, and reduce fleet vehicle risks.
What are its benefits?
The benefits of fleet management are multi-fold. Effective fleet vehicle management increases productivity, improves customer service, yields fuel savings, and provides real-time visibility:
Provides real-time visibility
Fleet management software provides fleet managers with comprehensive historical data and real-time visibility into operations, encouraging them to make data-driven decisions to reduce costs, improve safety, and maximise efficiency.
Reduces fuel costs
Fuel accounts for nearly 40% of the fleet ownership. As part of your fleet management strategy, GPS vehicle tracking solutions can help reduce fuel costs by 20% to 25%. These tracking solutions alert you to idle times per vehicle and deliver averages across the fleet. You can also learn how to monitor fleet performance, track how improvements affect their idle time, and educate drivers about reducing idling times. Companies which adopt these solutions reduce total miles driven by 5% to 10%.
Increases productivity
Telematics solutions for heavy-duty commercial vehicles also boost productivity by helping you gauge maintenance, reduce idle time, downsize your fleet, improve asset tracking and routing, monitor safety, and increase employee efficiency. Tracking maintenance is one of the best ways telematics solutions make fleets more productive. Fleets can only operate when vehicles are in for scheduled maintenance or break down.
Telematics helps you be proactive with preventive maintenance. You will know how many hours your vehicles operate and get real-time insights into engine hour data to optimise preventive maintenance schedules. You will also know exactly when to replace vehicles.
Improves customer satisfaction
Fleet vehicle management can improve customer satisfaction thanks to a GPS tracking solution. It will help ensure driver compliance with routes and schedules to avoid missing or delaying deliveries or appointments. You will also know which commercial vehicle truck is closest to the job to minimise travel time and help drivers reach customers more quickly.
Conclusion
As artificial intelligence and technology continue to improve, these capabilities are likely to become impressive and enable new standards for data collection and visualisations. Even with this incredible progress, innovations are being made every year to push the industry further. You need to make informed decisions and upgrade your fleet accordingly.
