The importance of fleet optimization

For fleet managers, increasing fleet productivity and decreasing costs is a top priority. Investing in fleet tracking technology to help achieve fleet optimization is one of the most effective ways to realize these goals.

According to the 2022 Fleet Technology Trends Report, conducted for Verizon Connect by Bobit Business Media, a majority of fleet managers and executives across industries indicate that GPS tracking has had a beneficial impact on their fleet operations.

• 65% consider fleet tracking “very” or “extremely” beneficial
• 46% in the transportation industry saw improved productivity post-adoption
• 83% in the government industry said fleet technology helps protect their organization from false claims
• 62% indicated that they realized a positive ROI after implementing a fleet management solution
• 79% improved driver safety with video telematics

It’s clear that fleet tracking can help improve many facets of operations that contribute to fleet optimization. Let’s take a closer look at what fleets and fleet managers can achieve with the right telematics technology.  

 How fleet tracking can help improve fleet optimization

 Efficient route optimization

By continually monitoring every vehicle’s location, a fleet management system provides multiple data points to improve vehicle routing, including vehicle stops, mileage, individual driving patterns and other important management data. 

To route vehicles more efficiently, you can:

• View a near real-time comprehensive map of all current vehicle locations and their status
• Use the closest-vehicle function to specify an address and locate the closest vehicle
• Route a specific vehicle to the next job
• Review up to a full year of vehicle location history online
• Track weekly mileage
• Monitor mileage trends with various easy-to-run reports

 Reduced fuel costs

Fleet management software lets you stay on top of operational aspects that impact efficient fuel consumption. This includes:

• Speeding: Maintaining proper speeds can significantly reduce fuel usage. See speed events per driver and set up alerts that are triggered any time a driver breaches a specific speed threshold. 
• Idling: Monitor unnecessary, wasteful idling and receive alerts any time idling has gone past a specific threshold you define.
• Fuel monitoring: Integrate fuel cards with software and run reports that show total fuel spend per vehicle and the location of each fill-up. Track miles per gallon, pinpoint causes of high fuel consumption, reduce fuel slippage (e.g. stolen fuel) and enforce fuel-saving habits.

 Promote security and safety

Keeping tabs on how every driver operates every vehicle and knowing each vehicle’s condition before it hits the road can be a daunting task. Vehicle tracking can help managers understand where issues exist and where improvements can be made toward achieving safety standards that support fleet optimization.

Here are a few examples of how telematics can help prioritize safety and security:

• Vehicle theft and unauthorized use: Use geofences to place virtual boundaries around designated geographical areas to track fleet vehicles as they move in and out of those areas. Tracking can also aid law enforcement in the event a vehicle is stolen. 
• Routine maintenance: Know when vehicles are due for maintenance. Along with helping to keep vehicles safe, this helps keep vehicles on the road longer and operating costs low. 
• Visual evidence: Use integrated video to get a holistic view of driving conditions at any point in time. View driver footage alongside road-facing footage to help mitigate false claims, promote driver safety and document accident circumstances.

• Speeding: Monitor vehicle speed and location, compare vehicle speeds against posted speed limits along vehicle routes, and track speeding incidents by driver and vehicle.

• Hard braking and acceleration: This behavior is risky and can damage vehicles, making them less safe to operate. Get a clear picture of engine and vehicle diagnostics by identifying when and where these events occur.

Improved utilization

Knowing which vehicles are unused or underused is just as important as knowing what active vehicles are doing. With the right fleet tracking solution, managers can receive detailed reporting metrics around miles traveled, days utilized, number of trips and more. This can help identify vehicles that may be underutilized, or not needed in the fleet at all.

Some helpful features include:

• Field service scheduling: Fully-integrated, intelligent and simple scheduling and dispatching will help you overcome inefficiencies to improve worker productivity.
• Asset management and utilization: Asset-tracking hardware lets you easily monitor and track equipment — both powered and non-powered assets — in order to know the exact location and usage at all times.
• Vehicle usage data: Easily analyze annual vehicle utilization by model and year to reveal whether older vehicles are used inefficiently and are candidates for elimination to reduce overall fleet size. Optimizing fleet size helps you manage a leaner, more efficient fleet.
• Job history: Know where vehicles have been, when they arrived and how long they stayed.

Fleet optimization can help you streamline operations and gain a competitive edge. To find out more about how fleet tracking technology can improve your optimization efforts, download the full Fleet Technology Trends Report.