Fleet tracking is one of the best tools to come to the fleet industry in the modern age. It is used across all aspects of fleet management, from safety to maintenance and more. Almost every fleet uses fleet monitoring software, but are you getting the most out of it? There are so many ways to use it; you may be missing out on some! Let’s review some fleet monitoring best practices to ensure you’re fully utilizing your investment.
No. 1: Optimize Your Safety Program
You can use fleet tracking to optimize your fleet safety program with various tools. There are four in particular that you should pay attention to when looking to prioritize safety for your fleet:
- Telematics: You can use telematics to spot dangerous driving habits. You can track the following behaviors: speeding, harsh braking, rapid acceleration, and other similar conduct.
- Route Optimization: Route optimization gives your drivers confidence in where they’re going. It can also eliminate significant dangers drivers may face on the road. These include left turns and U-turns.
- Geofencing: If your drivers behave unexpectedly, you’ll be the first to know. Therefore, if your driver is in danger, you’ll be able to act immediately.
- Problem Areas: Problem areas include poor road design, heavy traffic, or bad weather conditions that make certain areas challenging for drivers. However, fleet tracking can easily generate a report showing you where dangerous driving occurs and how often.
No. 2: Simplify Dispatching
Dispatching is one of the most critical parts of a fleet manager’s daily job, and it can’t be done well without high-functioning fleet tracking software. Fleet tracking maps out your entire fleet and tells you who to dispatch, where to send them, and how many vehicles you will need for your routes.
Fleet management software with fleet tracking allows you to review routes, assign drivers, and create schedules from a single dashboard. This means that your days of struggling to update drivers have passed. That information is automatically given to them via the driver’s mobile app, where they can see any updates in real-time. This makes communication far more straightforward, helping you streamline your dispatching process.
No. 3: Save on Fuel
There are many elements of fleet tracking that will help you save money on fuel. Fuel is costly right now, and anything that can cut prices is greatly appreciated.
- Route Planning Software: We mentioned route planning software earlier for safety, but it is also helpful for saving on fuel. It finds where you may run into traffic, roadblocks, construction, or other delays that will slow you down and waste your fuel. It also helps you keep just the right amount of vehicles on the road, so one vehicle doesn’t have too many or too few stops, rendering it inefficient.
- Reduce Speeding: Speeding is also terrible for fuel economy. Every 5 miles per hour after 50, you’re paying an additional $0.20 per gallon of gas.
- Reduce Idling: Idling a truck wastes about 0.8 gallons of fuel per hour. Azuga not only tells you how much idling is occurring within your fleet but how much fuel it’s wasting.
- Improve Maintenance: You can get scheduled maintenance alerts that tell you when your vehicles have issues that need attention. Scheduled maintenance also helps you keep up with your vehicles’ regular maintenance needs, so you can rest assured your vehicles are in their best shape.
No. 4: Promote Good Maintenance
Maintenance is critical for keeping your fleet safe and efficient. Several features of fleet tracking help you promote good maintenance for your fleet vehicles, so you can rest assured that they are operating at their full potential.
- Maintenance Alerts: We mentioned maintenance alerts and how they help you keep up with your vehicles’ maintenance needs.
- Maintenance Log Tracking: Fleet maintenance software helps you digitize your fleet maintenance records.
- Keeping Inspection Logs on Hand: Whenever your drivers or mechanics perform an inspection, all of their notes are housed in your fleet maintenance software.
No. 5: Make Decisions with Fleet Data
With fleet monitoring, you can keep track of all kinds of fleet data you never thought possible before. The possibilities are endless, but these are just some data points you can track to make crucial decisions.
- Safety Data: Driver behavior reports show patterns and help you better analyze a driver’s overall behavior.
- Job and Customer Data: The data on jobs and your employees is available throughout the day and over a more extended period, giving you a comprehensive view of anything you want to know regarding your fleet’s daily operations.
- Maintenance Data: Over time, vehicle maintenance reports help you track how to best handle vehicle issues.
Get the Most out of Fleet Tracking with the Best Software
Azuga offers the best when it comes to fleet tracking software. Our customers come from all industries in fleet management and are thrilled with our results. Try a demo if you’re interested in becoming one of our delighted clients, and see for yourself what we can do together.
