It is that time of the year when you are likely finalizing your budget and looking for ways that your fleet can reduce costs going into the new year. According to Automotive Fleet Magazine, the top cost containment concerns for fleets in 2015 include fleet safety, vehicle acquisitions, and fuel costs. Fleet trackers can solve these challenges and others so your business can have the most profitable year possible.
Fleet Safety Costs
A rise in preventable accidents, vehicle repairs, and driver downtime all contribute to the predicted trend of high costs for fleet safety in 2015. By using fleet trackers, you can decrease the chance of accidents, keep your fleet safe, and reduce fleet safety costs.
Within a fleet tracking solution, utilize reports and alerts to monitor speeding, harsh breaking, and rapid acceleration to help prevent accidents before they happen. Vehicle repairs can be one of the highest expenses for fleets, the average crash will cost a business over $16,000. Having your vehicles in the shop will also lead to a drop in driver productivity during repair time.
Vehicle Acquisition Trends
Vehicle acquisition trends for 2015 will be driven by new buying factors. New vehicle purchasing will move towards greener/ lighter-duty vehicles that include improved safety options. This trend will reduce costs associated with maintenance, fuel, and will communicate your company’s green initiative to customers and shareholders.
The upfront cost associated with acquiring new vehicles may be a challenge for your fleet. What most fleets may not realize is that they have underutilized vehicles that are raising expenses. To incorporate lighter-duty vehicles without it taking an initial hit to your bottom line, identify and eliminate underutilized vehicles by monitoring vehicle utilization reports. By downsizing your fleet to only what you need, reduce unnecessary costs and make room in your budget to acquire greener/lighter-duty vehicles throughout 2015.
Contain Fuel Costs with Fleet Trackers
Although fuel prices are more stable, fuel will always be an expense that your fleet needs to factor in to the budget. Even though some of this is a required overhead, it is likely that your fleet is spending unnecessary dollars on fuel as well. Some of the contributing factors to unnecessary fuel consumption include vehicle idle and drive time, speeding, and inefficient routing – fleet trackers can identify all of these.
Tracking your vehicles can prevent unnecessary fuel costs by enforcing acceptable idle time thresholds with automated alerts, monitoring driver efficiency to catch drivers who speed to make up their time, and identify drivers that may be taking longer routes to job sites to pad hours.
There are many reports and alerts which can track these metrics to ensure that your drivers are only using the fuel needed to complete their job responsibilities. You will be surprised how much your fleet could be saving in fuel by utilizing fleet trackers.
Learn how GPS Insight benefits your industry and how your fleet can contain costs in 2015!
