How telematics helps to combat rising fuel costs

Fuel prices have been rising all around the world in recent months. As fuel is one of the biggest costs in the transport industry (maybe the biggest), this isn’t the news that haulers were looking for. Increasing fuel costs mean increased pressure on managers and staff to keep costs low.

Turning to telematics is one way to help improve fuel efficiencies. By taking a bird’s eye view of your fleet you can see where wasteful behaviors can be cut down, and make significant savings.

Let's take a closer look at a handful of ways that telematics cut down on fuel usage and expenditure -

 

Reduce idle times

An idling truck use a lot of unnecessary fuel. Monitoring idling through GPS tracking, geofences and Idle Reports allows managers to see how much time trucks are spending idling. Decisions can be made on how to reduce this, saving on fuel costs, as well as helping with long-term maintenance. An example of how this works may be that once a driver enters a geofence set around a customer’s yard they have a set time, e.g. one minute to shut their engine off. If drivers are staying idle for longer than a minute, corrective action can be taken, and the time brought down.

 

Correct tire pressures

Keeping tires inflated to the recommended level is another great way to save on fuel costs. Underinflated tires are common, and they not only increase fuel costs but also increase wear on the tires themselves, reducing their lifetime and creating more cost. Telematics can monitor tire inflation levels using sensors on both tractors and trailers. This lets fleet managers and drivers know when immediate action is required, and they can see fleet-wide trends, streamlining maintenance, increasing safety and reducing costs all in one go.

 

Harsh acceleration and braking

Not only a major safety concern, harsh driving events also have a negative effect on fuel consumption. When vehicles are speeding, they use more power - by not speeding on the highway, fuel consumption rates can be reduced by up to 33%. Harsh braking, which is usually a result of speeding contributes to this cost as well.

By using telematics tools such as dashcams and driver scorecards, you can encourage safe driving practices and boost driver coaching, bringing down instances of harsh events. As well as this you can monitor fleet wide speeding events to see where action needs to be taken to lower fuel costs.

 

Optimize routes

The more efficient the route, the less fuel used. It seems simple but in practice it’s not always that easy. On busy routes, particularly in cities and suburban streets routes often need to change due to traffic and road works. Telematics systems can help to optimize your fleets routes so that you can be the most productive in the shortest amount of time, bringing down fuel costs.

 

Looking to save on fuel costs? Get in touch with our team today!