REDWOOD CITY, CA – A new survey from GreenRoad of 430 fleet leaders in North America found that fleet managers are rapidly adopting smartphones and work-related apps to manage their fleets from any location. According to the survey, 76% of those surveyed said fleet managers carry smartphones at work.

The survey found that 59% of respondents are using the smartphone or mobile apps for fleet management activities, including fleet tracking and more advanced fleet and driver-related services. GreenRoad noted that fleet-specific app usage has tripled in the last seven months compared with data from a February 2012 GreenRoad survey, which reported that 19% of managers use smartphones or mobile apps to manage their fleets.

“We are amazed at how rapidly fleet leaders are turning to their smartphones to get fleet-related work done,” said Tanya Roberts, senior vice president of marketing for GreenRoad. “We always knew there would be a migration, but this is happening unbelievably fast.”

The survey also found that fleet managers will continue to adopt these tools for work. Of those surveyed, 53% expect fleet management app adoption to continue to increase.

Beyond fleet managers, GreenRoad’s survey found that drivers are also using smartphones, with 67% of respondents saying that all or most of their drivers have smartphones on the job. In addition, 35% of fleet leaders said drivers are using job-specific apps, often for navigation. A total of 17% of respondents said they expect to deploy additional smartphone apps for their fleet's drivers next year.

In terms of industry variance, GreenRoad didn’t find much, with 82% of respondents across industries saying they were either very or somewhat interested in using mobile technologies to manage their fleet. A total of 77% of respondents said they are looking for new technologies to “better connect” their fleets.

GreenRoad conducted the survey in September 2012. The group of more than 430 respondents who completed the survey included fleet managers and decision makers in a range of fleets, from private delivery to construction companies.

GreenRoad stated respondents were evenly distributed across fleets with a number of vehicles ranging from fewer than 100 to greater than 1,000. A total of 73% of respondents influence the purchase of, or give budget approval of, fleet technologies and related purchases.