10 Ways Telematics Improves Fuel Management
Fuel costs account for almost a third of running costs for haulage firms.
Our telematics solutions from TrakM8 help alleviate these costs, increase fuel economy and cut emissions.
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Driver Scoring
Rating a drivers performance improves MPG by 25% Driver scoring works by monitoring risky and fuel thirsty behaviour including: Speeding, over-revving or heavy acceleration, harsh braking, and sharp cornering. A driver starts with a score of 100% and loses percentage points every time they engage in one of these behaviours. The driver can access their scores via a mobile app. Fleet and transport managers can view map of historic journeys to see where each driver behaviour breach occurred, enabling them to identify trends and act accordingly.
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In-vehicle Coaching
These systems are designed to provide real-time nudges to drivers to help them avoid the type of high-risk and fuel-burning behaviours outlined above. Lightbars are placed on dashboards and change between green and red to indicate good or bad behaviours. One of the key advantages of these in-vehicle systems is that they constantly reinforce good driving.
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Engine Idling
Telematics devices will register when your car is not moving and your engine is left on. For every 10 minutes of idling, a vehicle with a 3-litre engine burns 300ml of fuel, while one with a 5-litre engine will burn 500ml of fuel over the same period. When factored over an entire fleet, you could be looking at a huge amount of wasted fuel. Idling just doesn’t have cost implications but emissions also contribute pollution levels and is a finable offence.
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Fuel Theft
The ability to connect the vehicles CPU gives fleet managers a wide array of data. This includes fuel tank levels. Custom alerts will notify managers of sudden level drops which indicates theft. And also when and where it occurred.
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Tyre Pressure
CAN bus connectivity can now also provide data from a vehicle’s tyre pressure monitoring system (TPMS).
Underinflated tyres result in higher fuel consumption, because they increase road resistance. A reduction in air pressure by one bar causes a 30% increase in rolling resistance, and a rise in fuel consumption of 3%.
A tyre that is 20 per cent under-inflated will wear out 25% faster than a tyre kept at the correct pressure.
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Unauthorised Use
Vehicle tracking can help to identify, monitor and prevent unauthorised use of company vehicles. This could be employees making detours during work hours for personal reasons; or out-of-hours use of company vehicles.
Snail trails showing the routes drivers took – and the times trips occurred – can help fleet or transport managers to quickly identify those miles employees drove for personal reasons, but using your fuel.
Another way to prevent unauthorised vehicle use is with geo-fencing. Geo-fences are virtual boundaries around geographical locations, and can be assigned to groups or individual vehicles.
Once the geofence is configured, the manager will then receive a notification every time that vehicle crosses the boundary.
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Nearest Vehicle
Leading telematics solutions now incorporate “Find My Nearest Vehicle” features, so you can type in a postcode and immediately see which of your vehicles is closest to that location.
Many vehicle operators often encounter last-minute requests from customers or client emergencies which require an immediate response.
Telematics enables managers to quickly identify the nearest vehicle to the location, cutting down on wasted mileage and improving the response time to your customer.
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Vehicle Cameras
Vehicle cameras are primarily used to prevent “crash for cash” fraud and to reduce road risk. However, research has shown that drivers who know their vehicles are fitted with cameras tend to adopt a more sensible and risk-averse driving style. This is known as the Hawthorne Effect, or the Observer Effect. A safer driving style is often a smoother and more fuel efficient driving style, helping again to boost MPG.
The latest generation of telematics cameras combine vehicle tracking and driver behaviour with single and dual lens cameras. While the first lens monitors the road ahead, the second lens monitors the driver. The best telematics cameras have remote live-streaming capabilities, meaning the transport or fleet manager can conduct spot checks any driver, at any time. Again, this helps to discourage drivers from risky or fuel-burning behaviours.
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Route Planning
Route optimisation is proven to cut total fleet mileage by up to 20%. Optimisation achieves these savings by analysing all of your resources such as depots, drivers and vehicles. It then assigning jobs or tasks to each driver or vehicle in a way that makes the entire process as efficient as possible, delivering the lowest cumulative mileage.
The best route optimisation platforms factor your electric vehicles (EVs) into these calculations, alongside conventional diesel and petrol vehicles.
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Vehicle Utilisation
Route optimisation over basic route planners is that it can substantially increase vehicle utilisation rates. Consolidating your goods deliveries and collections onto fewer vehicles reduces wasted miles and empty running.
To find out more about our range of telematics solutions from Trakm8 click here – https://www.cambriancards.com/trakm8-telematics/