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Fleet cost management to help reduce fuel consumption
Fleet cost management helps businesses cut fleet costs not only to help face daily challenges, but also to help improve...
Read moreWhen it comes to fleet management, uptime is everything. You need to balance performance, safety and costs within the uptime equation for each vehicle and for your fleet overall — but that means you can’t rely on reactivity or guesswork.
Operational data analysis is where you can get to the root of fleet uptime and glean actionable insights from the everyday movement of your people and vehicles. The right fleet data analysis reveals patterns in maintenance, downtime and routing that you may have overlooked. It can also help you keep ahead of issues before they occur.
Today’s fleet management platforms combine near real-time vehicle tracking, driver behavior monitoring and video analytics, giving you the visibility and insights needed to operate smarter and more cost effectively. A telematics system with integrated video can help drive smarter, more cost-effective decisions across your entire organization by providing you with fleet data and the means to interpret it.
The fleet data you need to drive down fuel and maintenance costs
Every minute one of your vehicles spends idling or sidelined can chip away at your profitability. Operational data analysis can help you identify those hidden costs and find new opportunities to save. How can you start making moves toward greater efficiency rather than staying reactive? Key metrics like these can help:
- Cost per mile: Total operational cost divided by miles driven, offering insights into efficiency per vehicle.
- Fuel efficiency: Average miles per gallon and fuel spend patterns.
- Maintenance costs: Frequency and costs of repairs and regular servicing.
- Vehicle downtime: How often and how long vehicles are unavailable for use due to maintenance or repairs.
- Diagnostic trouble codes (DTC): Early warnings of vehicle issues.
- Idling time: Quantifies wasted fuel and unnecessary idling hours.
- Engine hours: Track how long engines have been running to determine proactive maintenance scheduling.
When combined, these insights enable you to shift toward a proactive, preventative maintenance program, properly train mechanics and make sure you have the right parts on hand. Streamlined scheduling helps reduce unexpected downtime and costly repairs, which can extend the life of your vehicles and reduce how frequently you need to purchase replacements, lowering total cost of ownership over time.
Apex Landscaping used operational data analysis to shift from reactive to proactive maintenance to support a better experience for its customers. Jeff Hoetzer, fleet manager at Apex, says Verizon Connect Reveal has helped the company complete maintenance more regularly and faster.
"Once you've got a vehicle in for an oil change or to do maintenance, you go through the entire piece of equipment, so you can see what's going on with it. Then you can catch things," he says. "You might notice a tire is starting to wear funny, and that might be a loose suspension part. If you don't do the maintenance on the machines, they're going to break down, and it's going to be costly to fix them. Now, whenever we have breakdowns, it's a lot easier for me to know where that equipment is and where to dispatch the mechanics.”
AI-driven video insights that make a difference
It’s not just fuel and maintenance costs that play a major role in overall fleet performance—driver behavior is a big piece of the puzzle. With operational data analysis powered by smart integrated video, fleet managers can gain the full picture of what’s happening on the road and behind the wheel of every vehicle.
With front-facing, driver-facing and extended view cameras that seamlessly connect to their telematics platform, fleet managers can:
- Automatically warn drivers of dangerous behaviors to help reduce accidents.
- Identify distracted driving and other risky behaviors.
- Improve driver behavior with video-based coaching.
- Review harsh driving footage and set up notifications when these occur.
- Protect drivers and the company against false claims and mitigate liability.
- Give drivers a near 360-view around the vehicle to help prevent accidents with extended view cameras.
The next generation of smart dashcams are here and they’re utilizing AI to do even more for your fleet. Unlike standard dashcams, AI-enabled models combine dual-facing cameras with onboard telematics, AI algorithms and fleet analytics. This smart video system automatically detects risky driving behaviors in near-real time, like distracted driving, harsh braking and tailgating.
This enables fleet managers to track and identify driving trends and identify unwanted driving behaviors that end up costing your organization money. This information can then be used to create safety scorecards and driver coaching curriculum for all drivers or for specific individuals.
Here’s how all of this translates into cost savings for your fleet:
- Monitoring driver behavior can help reduce physical wear and tear on your vehicles.
- Integrated video can help mitigate accident risks and reduce costs for vehicle repairs, downtime, injury claims and lost productivity.
- This leads to lower insurance premiums and can help avoid insurance hikes after crashes.
- It also helps protect your drivers and your organization against false claims, unwarranted liability costs and damage to company and driver reputation with irrefutable video proof.
Want more tips for coaching drivers using integrated video? Check out this free webinar.
The Verizon Connect advantage
With operational data analysis, you can pinpoint high-cost areas, coach drivers with confidence and measure your ROI over time. According to the Verizon Connect Fleet Technology Trends Report, businesses utilizing GPS tracking systems have reported significant cost reductions:
- Fuel costs decreased by an average of 12%.
- Accident costs reduced by 19%.
- Labor costs lowered by 12%.
- Vehicle maintenance costs decreased by 15%.
- Insurance costs reduced by 11%.
Verizon Connect’s easy-to-use dashboards enable you to analyze trends and compare your fleet data against industry benchmarks. Fleet management analytics will show you where you can save on costs and operate a more efficient fleet.
Want to learn more? You can easily schedule a demo today.