JACKSONVILLE, FL – McCall Service, pest control, lawn care, and petroleum distribution company in Florida, has added GPS tracking to its fleet of 100 vehicles, according to a case study from GPS tracking company provider inthinc.

According to the study, Al Formella, vice president of operations for McCall Service, was concerned about rising fuel and maintenance costs for his fleet of 100 service vehicles.

“It’s not all about saving money—safety is really important to us as well,” Formella said. “You have some aggressive drivers out there and, for the most part, we are lucky to have avoided major problems over the past several years. I felt like I needed to stop tempting fate and find something to protect our drivers.”

Formella decided to contract with inthinc as its GPS fleet tracking solution provider. McCall Service installed inthinc’s tiwiPro across all five of the company’s divisions during a six-week period. So far, the system is paying dividends for the fleet due to its ability to track vehicle use and driver behavior.

“Unauthorized vehicle use has dropped considerably. We had drivers come up to us and say, ‘Does this mean I have to buy my own vehicle now?’” Formella said.

In the case study, Formella said company managers check the Web-based system on Monday mornings to monitor unauthorized weekend vehicle use. Also, the company is setting up a safety program based on the system. McCall also sets a “curfew” option to check for vehicle operation after 7 PM, when company vehicles are generally not being used for work purposes. Any vehicle in use after that time is flagged for review.

“We look at the driver scorecard all the way down to an individual level, not just for the overall division,” said Dee Hayes, operations coordinator for McCall Service. “This allows us to track each driver’s performance and note improvement, which the company compares on a quarterly basis.”

The program will focus on drivers with scores in the 1.0 to 2.0 range, as reported by the system. The system can monitor vehicle speed and report on vehicles going over local speed limits, for example. Hayes said the company plans to counsel those drivers for improvement and reward those whose scores improve. Scores range from 1.0 to 5.0 in the system.

McCall is also using the tracking service to protect its drivers from accusations from others on the road of negligent driving.

“Before, we had to take people’s word for it, and it was really whatever the driver said or whatever excuse either side came up with, but now we have documentation,” Formella said. “If we get a call about a driver, we can go right in and see the context of any situation.”