From Safety to Savings GPS Fleet Management Software is Crucial
From GPS tracking to driver safety to route optimizations, GPS fleet management software is a critical solution to ensuring your fleet's success. Whether you are already using a service or are just getting started it is important to understand the benefits so that you can unlock the value of your fleet operations.
Learn 17 ways fleet tracking systems will improve your business.
1. Increase Driver Engagement with Gamification and Rewards
Engagement in the workplace always pays off but it is much more difficult to understand the actions to take to drive this engagement. It can be even more difficult with technicians or drivers in the field. This is where a GPS Fleet Management solution can help give you a tool that offers the framework needed to exceed your drivers expectations. Features that enable gamification have proven to increase employee morale and help to ensure your implementation of a GPS fleet management system gets traction. You should ask yourself, “does your vehicle tracking system say gotcha, or good job?” If your solution does not support a culture of “good job” you should look into a new solution.
Rewarding your drivers is the key to increased accountability and productivity, and Azuga offers a fleet mobile app to help facilitate these rewards.
The following facts should make it clear why recognition & rewarding employee matters to morale:
1. 73% of Employees agree that recognition makes them feel happier at work.
2. Employees appreciate when they are given recognition immediately for their work.
3. 69% of the employees would work harder if they felt their work is being appreciated.
2. Lower Insurance Premiums with Easy Claim Settlements and Less Risk
Similar to home insurance policies reducing premiums for home security, your business can also see a reduction in premiums by implementing a GPS Fleet Management solution. In addition, many insurance companies will reduce your rate if you install a fleet dashcam. The increased vehicle and driver visibility reduces the risk for your insurance provider so most insurance companies will pass through a discount for this lowered risk assessment.
Aside from a reduction to your insurance premium, a GPS tracking device on your vehicle or high-value asset will make claims much easier for you, and the insurance provider. Whether it is an accident or theft, a modern GPS fleet management solution will provide all the insights needed to process your claim. In some
3. Reduce Distracted Driving
Distracted driving accounts for 3,500 deaths a year. 80% of automobile accidents are attributed to distracted driving. There are many factors that lead to distracted driving.
- Cell phone use is the 2nd largest factor that contributes to a staggering 14% of the deaths caused by distracted driving. This demands the implementation of a GPS fleet management system that can restrict cell phone usage. Aside from the clear death rate correlation lawsuits can also be devastating with millions in penalties. Some of the features you should evaluate are things like disabling apps; whitelisting users only who could call; providing guided cellphone uses could help minimize distracted driving.
- Distracted driving caused by texting adds to insurance premiums due to an increase in traffic violations. Distracted driving adds a 5% increase in the insurance rates.
4. Build Trust With Your Drivers
As previously mentioned many GPS fleet management providers create a culture of “Big Brother” but modern software is focused on the driver. While it is always important for businesses to inspect what they expect out of their drivers, it should not sacrifice morale.
When you install a GPS fleet system for your fleet, it’s recommended that you communicate to your drivers with transparency. This helps them understand your sincerity towards your fleet business and its future.
It is clear that employees trust contributes to a better morale, so implementing a GPS Fleet Management system should be a win-win for the driver and the business.
- 74% less stress
- 50% higher productivity
- 106% more energy
- 76% more engagement
5. Optimize Administrative Tasks
When you have a system that does all the dirty work for you, you can focus more on what matters most to you and bring more value to your business. Are you still calling your drivers to find their location? If so, there are countless hours wasted, not to mention the neverending headaches experienced by your staff.
Smaller things such as assigning jobs, tracking vehicle whereabouts, tracking drivers’ login/logout & various other breaks, tracking the performance of drivers, and more could easily be automated with the help of GPS fleet management software.
6. Reducing Carbon Footprints
GPS fleet management software helps you monitor driver’s behavior such as:
- Driving in the wrong gear
- Hard braking
- Aggressive acceleration
This inefficient driver behavior leads to more fuel consumption that in turn contributes to an increase in greenhouse gas emission.
When you have data that helps you upfront, you can strategize on how to promote better driver behaviors with driver engagement as discussed earlier.
Automatic Maintenance checks can help keep track of fuel usage, tire pressure, minimizing waste, cutting bills, and sending reminders when the maintenance checks are due or required.
This not only helps you save on fuel costs but meaningfully contributes to do your part to reduce global warming.
7. Driver Visibility
Fleet management tools not only help keep track of your vehicles but also provide an enhanced level of driver visibility. Some of the main features you can expect are:
Employee Time Cards
You can track driver shift actions including:
- Starting their shift
- Taking a break
- Resuming shift
- Ending shift
Weekly reporting is also simplified by keeping track of:
- Logged hours
- Break hours
- Number of breaks taken
Optimized Job Assignments
You can speed up your delivery, save fuel, get real-time data by just assigning jobs to the drivers based on data to further optimize the performance.
Some features you can expect are:
- Create/end jobs, assign jobs, update the status of a job.
- Navigate to the location of the job
- Filter based on job status and sort jobs based on the start time and number
- View job history
This helps you with better driver management and gives you the highest ROI on your fleet management solution.
Electronic Forms
Forms help you get data from your drivers such as field activities being performed.
You can take information such as orders, numbers, multiple-choice questions, checklists, and more.
8. Work From Anywhere With a Fleet Mobile App
A fleet mobile app helps you manage and track your fleet on the go. It allows you to view, analyze, and monitor information such as vehicle location, average speed, stops, and events such as sudden acceleration, hard braking, ignition off, live status, work, messages, utilities, etc.
Fleet mobile apps can play a significant role in avoiding distracted driving. Features such as restricting what apps can run on your drivers’ phone, who can call your drivers when they are on the move, ability to allow or block text messages, controlled navigation, and more make this a must-have option in your GPS fleet management solution.
Learn more about how a Fleet Mobile App can help your business.
9. Improved Customer Experience
It’s always important to keep your customers in the loop. When your customers know what’s happening with their order and when they can expect the delivery and/or service, the chances of customers’ happiness increases significantly. Fleet tracking software enables easy access to the information you need to provide this level of customer service. If you are still having to call your driver to find out their location this type of software will solve this problem, and more.
10. Reduce Excess Vehicle Idling
Idling accounts for more than 17% of your fuel’s energy. In an 8-cylinder passenger vehicle or light truck, every hour of engine idle time burns a little more than half a gallon of gas. For medium and heavy-duty trucks, this number is even higher. In addition, at idle, your engine is operating at a lower temperature, meaning fuel is being burned inefficiently, leaving residue deposits on your plugs and your cylinders, and further decreasing efficiency by as much as 4-5% over time.
A good fleet management tool will help keep your fleet vehicles’ excess idling in check. Real-time alerts provide information about stops and engine off-on status, helping you identify periods of engine idle. In addition, engine idle reports directly from the onboard computer give you visibility and help you control idling among your drivers.
11. Optimize Job Routing
The routes your drivers take can add extra costs to your operation, when driven inefficiently. A number of factors can contribute to inefficient driving routes:
Lack of monitoring drivers: Even small increases in and out of the optimized route can significantly impact your bottom line. At times, drivers make mistakes (both intentional and unintentional) but rarely are you aware of these mistakes without a robust GPS Fleet Management solution.
Cris-crossing routes: planning routes using paper maps and knowledge of the area can frequently yield excessive windshield time for drivers. Route planning and optimization software, coupled with wireless dispatch to vehicles, will reduce this waste.
Dispatching decisions: when dispatching work on the fly, selecting the worker that is closest to a customer site (or at least closer than others) can help improve your service levels and decrease the fuel needed to get to the site. When dispatching with paper-based systems and mobile communications, selecting the closest worker can be difficult.
With the help of fleet management tools, the real-time visibility of fleet vehicle locations helps dispatchers select the closest worker for service requests. Geofence, landmark and route tools let you identify key customers, distributors or route corridors to ensure drivers are staying on task and completing jobs as scheduled. A real-time map view with location and geofence alerts provide immediate notification of vehicle entry/exit from predefined areas.
12. Decreased Speeding
According to the U.S. Department of Energy, every 5 miles per hour in excess of 60 miles per hour has the effect of increasing fuel costs by $.21 per gallon with gas at $3 per gallon. That
represents an 8% hike in your fuel costs. In larger vehicles, the impact of speeding is even worse. According to a study completed by Kenworthii, every mile per hour over 55 reduces fuel efficiency by 0.1 miles per gallon. Vehicles that average 65 MPH drop 1 MPG in fuel efficiency. For medium and heavy-duty trucks, this adds up to significantly higher fuel consumption.
Fleet tracking software helps you with real-time speeding alerts with custom speed settings to help you identify speed violations as they happen and correct them. Historical reports include vehicle speed and other aggressive driving behaviors, providing a tool for driver training, safe driving reward programs or remediation.
13. Prevent Unauthorized Vehicle Use
When workers elect to use company vehicles for unauthorized use, for personal use or running side jobs, it increases company risk, vehicle wear and tear, service costs, and fuel costs. For companies that allow workers to drive vehicles home at night, it’s important to ensure that the company vehicle doesn’t turn into the driver’s personal vehicle.
A vehicle tracking system sends you reports on the use of vehicles at unauthorized times in order to easily detect after-hours use of company vehicles. It also gives you immediate real-time alerts to vehicle status change (location, motion, engine status) and an immediate notification of usage. Breadcrumb and activity reports provide insights on dates, locations, times and routes of vehicles in use.
14. Stay in Compliance with eLogs
- Easy-to-use ELD software with graphical interface makes it easy for drivers to keep logs electronically
- Hours of Service records are automatically captured eliminating manual entries. Full support for co-drivers.
- Automated calculations keep drivers informed of driving availability which assists in time management.
- Visual and audible warnings help keep drivers compliant. In-vehicle log history ensures clean roadside inspections.
- The secure web-based administrative portal provides office personnel access to the data needed for reporting and optimizing resources and drivers.
15. Recovering Stolen Assets and Equipment
According to the National Insurance Crime Bureau, stolen construction equipment tops more than $1 billion, with less than 20% of stolen equipment recovered.
Asset tracking provides real-time alerts if high value equipment is being moved outside a predefined area, or at unexpected times. The asset tracking hardware can be set to change from 1 ping per day to 1 ping per hour, so asset recovery work can begin immediately and law enforcement can locate the equipment. Furthermore, insurance companies frequently take the use of theft reduction methods like asset tracking into account in determining premiums and possible discounts.
16. Custom Reports
Reports help you understand how things are going. It could be broken down into the various types of reports to help you gain insights accurately and hence, you can make informed decisions.
Driver Behavior Reports
Speeding patterns within a geofence during specific times of day, geofence violation, coaching report for drivers based on idling, speeding, hard braking, extreme braking and rapid acceleration with detailed displays details for each type of event. Correlation between current driving behavior and future risk. Personalized for each based on reported accident data. Driver scoring, ranking and individual corrective and coaching suggestions for drivers.
Fuel Reports
- Fuel transactions, correlations with fuel cards.
- Unusual spikes, unexpected consumption compared to expected MPG.
- Nearest-cheapest gas options for drivers. Opportunity costs gained (driver responds to nearest-cheapest gas). Opportunity lost when a driver ignores the recommendation.
- Expected MPG based on make-model-year of vehicle. Actual MPG for similar vehicles in your neck of the woods and in your industry.
Maintenance Reports
- Azuga Deals: Coupon mining of oil changes and other service types in your area, sent via email to drivers and fleet managers when the scheduled maintenance is due.
- Alerts based on miles, time intervals and actual engine hours.
- Detailed vehicle's scheduled maintenance for all or a group or one particular vehicle for all service types, report odometer readings for each vehicle at the start and end of the week.
- Low battery connect and disconnect alerts.
Fleet Performance Reports
Azuga’s Quarterly and Annual Fleet Reviews provide weekly and monthly performance metrics for the fleet as well as industry averages on:
- Fleet Operations - miles driven, stops made, unauthorized miles, idling, etc.
- Fleet Safety - speeding, braking, acceleration
- Fleet Utilization - peak-hour and peak-day utilization, days driven, etc.
- Fleet Vehicle Health - DTC and battery events
Productivity Reporting
Customized driver timesheet and activity report for shifts with time duration. Get vehicle details with trip latitude and longitude.
Insurance Reporting
- Behavior and Risk Scores, including vehicle scores and fleet scores; daily, monthly, and since inception scores
- Zip Code miles report
- Driver and Vehicle summary report
17. Driver Safety
Driver Safety not only protects the driver but other people (other road users, pedestrians ) from injury or even fatality.
To put the importance of driver safety in perspective, it is estimated that $47 billion is lost each year due to vehicle crashes. A quarter of the expenses were for off-the-job injuries to workers and their dependents. Over $20 billion was for disruption at work, damage to property and liability costs. The rest of the millions, as per NETS (Network of Employers for Traffic Safety), were for payouts such as health insurance and insurance covering work losses.
