April 2008, Automotive Fleet - Cover Story
How Fleets Tackle Rising Fuel Costs
By Cindy Brauer
Technology Provides Tighter Comprehensive Control
From the software incorporated in fuel management programs to the growing use of telematics, technology has provided new tools and services to help fleets control fuel expense more tightly and comprehensively.
GPS telematics is proving a valuable tool in offsetting rising fuel costs for many fleets. One fleet manager’s experience was typical of the benefits GPS technology provides in fleet management. The fleet manager reported, “What has worked well for us is installing GPS units on all our vehicles.” This step allowed the fleet operation to:
- Track fuel purchases, monitoring unauthorized fill-ups.
- Pinpoint speeding incidents.
- Uncover improper vehicle use.
- Monitor driver location.
- Route and dispatch vehicles more efficiently.
Fleet Director Vicki Dahlquist recorded a 10-percent reduction in fuel costs since implementing a fleet-wide GPS system at ValleyCrest Companies, a nation-wide landscape development and maintenance company headquartered near Los Angeles.
Jerry Lundberg, operations manager, Butterfield Lumber, based in Salt Lake City, oversees a fleet of pickup trucks and 18-wheelers. He uses GPS technology to track vehicles and improve routing efficiencies.
“I use the system to improve efficiency. It delivers a 90-mile radius of real-time vehicle tracking,” Lundberg said. He monitors driver speed and idle time and has reduced idle times from 48 percent to 23 percent.
Joe Spencer, president of the construction company Paul J. Rach, purchased a GPS fleet tracking system to monitor unauthorized evening and weekend use. The company’s management team now easily accesses its mobile resource management (MRM) provider’s mapping and reporting solution from any Internet-enabled device 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
“After we installed the MRM solution, we curtailed off-hours use by 100 percent. We also began receiving discounts on our insurance premiums and gained vision into speeding episodes. Now if we identify a driver with a habitual speeding pattern, we counsel him accordingly,” said Spencer.
Paul J. Rach saves a minimum of $150 per vehicle each month in reduced overtime and fuel savings for an annual savings of more than $35,000.
The MRM solution also performs everyday functions such as easy vehicle location identification, more efficient routing, and identification of unauthorized vehicle use. Time card accuracy has also increased along with on-time morning arrivals.
“Occurrences of unauthorized weekend driving — with drivers filling up their gas tanks on Friday afternoon and then again on Monday mornings — are few and far between,” noted Kenny Tarbart, Paul J. Rach shop foreman.
Anchor Pest Control in Sonora, Calif., operates a 15-vehicle fleet of work trucks. Owner Don Wolf had installed a GPS system in the company trucks to track location. However, he needed a system to monitor vehicle and driver performance and generate easy-to-read reports. He turned to a small, plug-in telematics unit, simply installed into the diagnostic port under the vehicle dashboard.
Wolf now diagnoses vehicle problems early and arranges routine servicing to avoid extended downtime. From the unit’s mileage and fuel reports, he can determine if employee driving habits were causing increased brake wear and reduced fuel economy.
System reports, formatted in charts and graphs, also help Wolf correlate service records and employee driving habits. “I can determine how long our service technicians are on-site performing their pest control duties,” he said.