Over the years, fleet management has evolved to more than just dots on the map. Seeing where your vehicles are or have been is only scratching the surface. Nowadays, fleet management technology is an irreplaceable tool for running your fleet and encompasses more of your fleet operations.
Catch up on your knowledge of the benefits of telematics. Below are the ABCs of fleet management that help keep your fleet safe, compliant and profitable.
ACCOUNTABILITY: Running personal errands on company-billed time, or keeping the truck idling while at a parking lot may not seem like big impacts on the company’s bottom line. But little things like this add up and cause unnecessary expenses. Fleet management solutions help put a number on how much speeding, idling, personal errands and frequent vehicle breakdowns are costing the business. They add transparency into how each member of the team is accountable in the running of a successful and profitable fleet.
BEHAVIOUR and BRAND IMAGE: Drivers are company and brand representatives on the road. If a driver is driving erratically or unsafe, it reflects poorly on the brand image and could end up costing in fines or collisions. Having insight into driver behaviour, fleet risk analysis and that of individual drivers helps fleet managers address aggressive driving, reward exemplary driving records and manage reputable brand image on the road.
CLOUD BASED SOLUTION: With a cloud based solution you have the ability to see your entire fleet from the palm of your hand. You can access your fleet information from anywhere on a mobile device with an internet connection. No additional programs are required for your computer either, a web based platform means you are just a click away from accessing cost saving data.
DTC or DIAGNOSTIC TROUBLE CODES: When connected to the vehicle’s OBD, Fleet Tracker collects over 20 data points from the vehicle’s onboard computer, along with Diagnostic Trouble Codes. It notifies the fleet manager of minor or major defects before critical breakage occurs, helping minimise downtime and prolong vehicle health.
EFFICIENCY: No matter the size of your business, the ability to do more jobs in a day without increasing your head-count can make a big difference to your bottom line. Managing your fleet with platforms like Fleet Complete can help you identify which of your assets are sitting idle and not earning their keep, and which of them are being stretched too thin and working overtime. Being efficient with work distribution helps keep all your assets productive and your overtime bills low.
FUEL SAVINGS: Fleet management software can drive down fuel-related costs by 2–3% of your net cost per mile. Put simply, our products enable you to identify and correct aggressive driving and idling, track fleet health and streamline your preventative maintenance schedules—all of which directly impact on your fuel usage.
GPS LOCATION: Time and GPS-stamped records of your vehicle’s position throughout the day is key to managing your fleet. Knowing when and where your vehicles have been, managers can make decisions on who to send to the next job, how to improve routes and where to address aggressive driving behavior.
HISTORIC TRIP DATA: Having access to historical data lets you make better informed business decisions. Not only can you investigate claims from the public but it allows you to have an overall picture of your fleet. You can analyse patterns overtime and make the most out of your assets.
INSPECT: is a mobile application that allows drivers to complete their Driver Vehicle Inspection Reports (DVIR) to stay compliant with the government regulation. Using this app, drivers are able to easily perform pre/post-trip vehicle inspections, log any minor or major defects, and sign off on the report, providing fleet managers at the head office an instant status update.
JOB SITE PRESENCE: A report showing the exact time each asset and worker arrived and left the job site makes it much easier on the accounting team to bill the customer and provide proof of hours present onsite. Together with the report that shows how long each asset’s engine was on and the fuel consumed per hours worked, managers get more accurate with project estimates and invoicing.
KPIs or KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATORS: You can’t manage what you can’t measure. Increasing visibility into how fleets are performing when it comes to key factors like safety, productivity, fuel efficiency, compliance and running costs helps business owners identify what is working, what is not working well, and uncover opportunities to run leaner and more profitable operations.
LOGBOOK: The Electronic Logbook solution provides a simple and convenient way to automate time-consuming Business vs Private vehicle logbooks and calculate your maximum Fringe Benefits Tax return. Make accurate FBT claims to reduce liability and eliminate the laborious upkeep of paper logbooks.
MAINTENANCE: Maintaining your vehicles properly and regularly keeps your fuel consumption at an optimum and ensures your assets are on the road earning business, instead of sitting in a service shop costing you in downtime. Fleet Complete’s Maintenance Module allows managers to set up alerts for vehicles that are approaching service thresholds, based on their mileage, engine hours and DTC alerts from the engine.
NEAREST VEHICLE: Sending the nearest driver to the job location saves you unnecessary miles driven, less fuel burned and quicker response times to your customer’s needs. Right clicking on the tracking map in the Fleet Complete app enables you to locate the closest available crew member to the location you have indicated.
OVERVIEW DASHBOARDS: Managing a fleet is a busy job. The larger it is, the more room there is for oversight and potential mistakes. A dashboard overview gives managers past and present status of fleet, risk analysis, kilometres driven, aggressive driving incidents, trips completed, underperforming and overworked assets, and more.
PERSONAL DURESS: Some remote jobs require a worker to venture out on their own, with little help available in case of an emergency. Ability to track their status and get immediate alerts, if the person is experiencing a medical emergency and is unresponsive, adds an extra layer of safety to lone workers. Personal duress adds the assurance of help being dispatched without delay when needed.
QUALITY: The quality of your service, and ultimately returning customers, depend on how quickly your team responds to a call, how timely your ETAs are, and how accurate your billing is. Fleet Complete system is designed to help automate and optimise day-to-day fleet operations, so that your managers and drivers can focus on providing exceptional customer service.
ROUTING: With Breadcrumb Trail and Trip Replay reports, managers can see which routes their drivers are taking. Whether they are taking private or public roads or the best possible route to the job. Optimising routes can result in more jobs being completed in a day, less delay between jobs, and less time spent in traffic. Reports on mileage completed on public vs private roads also helps streamline your FBT reporting.
SAFETY: Safer fleets are more profitable fleets. Speeding tickets, traffic violations and road collisions are all costing your business not only in fines, but also in delays, negative brand attention and higher driver turnover. A system that allows both managers and drivers operate their fleet safely helps improve performance, job satisfaction, and qualified worker retention.
TRIP REPLAY: Fleet Complete’s Trip Replay allows fleet managers to review all trips taken by a particular vehicle during a certain period. The trips can be classified as Private or Business and provide insight into the manner in which the trip was completed, the time and location of start and finish, and fuel consumption during the trip (vehicle dependent). All aggressive driving instances are colour coded on the map.
ULTIMATE PLATFORM: The ultimate telematics platform, the Holy Grail of Fleet Management, this system allows you to monitor all your assets on the same tracking map. Manage work schedules and time cards, report on asset profitability, capture engine health and vehicle status, track and address driving behavior, review and plan routes, manage points of interest, dispatch tasks, and more – all from a single platform. Not many vendors today offer one system to manage all aspects of your fleet operations. Fleet Complete is a multi-purpose, integrated platform that takes into account the needs of fleet managers, owners and drivers, and offers an array of solutions that help optimise all aspects of your fleet operations.
VIDEO TELEMATICS: is a solution that identifies and video-records incidents of potentially unsafe driving, such as lane drifting, speeding, tailgating, rolling STOPs and more. This type of data provides valuable insight to managers at the head-office, helps coach drivers on the road, and can be especially useful in situations when false claims are being made against company drivers.
WORKFORCE: Managing and tracking the activity of your mobile workers is just as important as monitoring their vehicles. Helping your workers better manage their daily tasks can help them do more in a day. Solutions like Task Tracker allow managers to send tasks to workers’ smartphones, from where each driver can either accept or reject the task, depending on their workload for the day. The app automatically arranges the tasks based on the job’s urgency, location from the previous job, and travel time.
eXONERATE: Skilled drivers are businesses’ most important assets. At a time when shortage of drivers is a national concern, retaining your drivers is key to running your business. At times, drivers are faced with claims of wrongful road activity or causing crashes that may negatively affect the driver’s record even if they are not at fault. Fleet management platforms that capture timestamped speed, behavior and location of the vehicle in question can provide the needed proof to clear your driver’s name.
YELLOW IRON: Construction equipment and heavy-machinery that are generally stationary or moving within an allocated job-site can benefit from GPS-tracking solutions as much as a vehicle fleet. Equipment theft is a daily concern for construction sites that are not always securely protected or guarded. Many business owners face the reality of stolen equipment more often than once a year. Replacement costs and project delays are the result and can be avoided if the equipment is recovered quickly. With Fleet Complete’s asset-tracking solutions that send alerts when an asset leaves the assigned job-site outside of authorised hours, recovery of stolen assets can be made fast.
ZONING or GEOFENCES are specifically defined web-map areas that are virtually drawn over jobsites, parking lots of a particular building, or over a specific route, helping monitor the times company vehicles cross over the virtual boundaries. This helps managers track the coming and going of workers to and from jobsites, monitor when stationary equipment leaves the area, or if a vehicle has deviated from a pre-determined route.
