The Benefits of Fleet Management and Vehicle Tracking Systems

Helping businesses to track and maintain some of their most expensive assets – that is, their vehicles – fleet management and vehicle tracking systems bring plenty of benefits.

Whether you need to keep tabs on your employees' company cars, or you run a fleet of vans that transports goods far and wide, vehicle tracking is a worthwhile investment. And it's worth noting that the implementation costs of a vehicle tracking system can be recouped very quickly.

But what are these benefits, and why should you install a fleet management and vehicle tracking system? Let's find out.

The benefits of fleet management and vehicle tracking systems

Vehicle tracking comes with countless benefits, but we're going to cover the main ones. Keep reading for more detail on each of these benefits, or use the sidebar to jump down to the points you're interested in.

The main benefits of vehicle tracking include:

✔ Reduced fuel costs
✔ Easier record keeping
✔ Increased productivity and enhanced customer service
✔ Better, safer driving
✔ Faster theft, breakdown and accident recovery
✔ Lower insurance premiums
✔ Easier maintenance and life cycle monitoring

✔ Reduced fuel costs

Yes, using a vehicle tracking system will help you to drastically cut the amount your business spends on fuel. How? By reducing fuel consumption and boosting fuel efficiency. Fuel prices can be a crippling burden on any business, so making sure you're not spending unnecessarily is vital. Plus, cutting fuel consumption also means reducing carbon emissions, lessening your business' impact on our beleaguered environment.

Here's how vehicle tracking can help you cut fuel consumption and costs:

By improving your drivers' behaviour

The way in which a driver, well, drives has a major impact on the amount of fuel that gets used. All of these driving practices can cause a vehicle to burn more fuel than it needs to:

• Speeding
• Going too slowly
• Idling (when the vehicle isn't moving but the driver leaves the engine on)
• Aggressive practices like hard braking and harsh acceleration

A telematics system can monitor driver behaviour, alerting you when a driver is exhibiting the above wasteful practices. This gives you the power to talk to your drivers about cutting down on these habits, and even educate and train them if necessary.

With advanced route planning

A fleet management system's route planning function is hugely important, enabling you to:

• Set the most fuel-efficient route for a job
• Avoid traffic delays and roadworks
• Dispatch the nearest driver for each job

All of this adds up to less fuel being used to complete each journey, meaning potentially huge savings for you – especially if you run a large fleet or manage HGVs.

By keeping vehicles up to scratch

Vehicles that are well-maintained don't burn fuel as quickly as those that aren't in top working order. So, making sure your fleet is in its best condition is essential if you want to save money on fuel (and create fewer carbon emissions!).

A vehicle tracking system will alert you to when vehicles need maintenance or repairs, helping you stay on top of what needs to be done.

Now, we know that repairs and maintenance can be pricey, but believe us when we say that upfront cost will save you a lot of money down the line. Leaving a vehicle in sub-par condition – or getting a cheap patch up – can lead to higher fuel costs and more expensive repairs.

✔ Easier record keeping

As you probably know, you're required to keep 28 days' worth of records by law. Thankfully, many fleet management systems make this so much easier by recording the necessary data automatically.

Fleet management systems also help businesses to keep accurate records of hours worked by employees and mileage undertaken, both of which are vital for good planning and auditing purposes.

Not to mention that these systems are paperless – consigning time wasted shuffling through papers and losing job sheets to the past.

✔ Increased productivity and enhanced customer service

This comes down to a key element of the fleet management system – GPS tracking. By installing vehicle tracking devices and so accurately tracking your vehicles via your fleet management software, you can offer your customers/clients:

1. Speed: When a job comes in, you can check the locations of each of your vehicles, and dispatch the closest one that'll get to the customer quickest.
2. Insight: You can keep customers/clients informed by: telling them how far away the driver is, providing a dynamic ETA, and sending alerts when there are delays or changes, or when the driver's nearly there.

Not only this, but tracking can also help you identify areas of reduced productivity and explore ways to increase your drivers' time utilisation.

✔ Better, safer driving

As we mentioned briefly above, vehicle tracking systems can help you to monitor and improve the way your drivers handle your vehicles. Precisely tracking your vehicles will enable you to:

• Ensure your drivers are sticking to the routes and jobs they've been assigned
• Ensure they're driving safely and within speed limits (many systems alert you if someone does something aggressive or unsafe)
• See how they're using company time (if they say they've been stuck in traffic when they've actually been parked outside a shopping centre, you'll know)
• Ensure they're not driving for too many hours in one go (by law, you must make sure your drivers take regular breaks)
• Pay them accurately, and check whether overtime claims are legitimate

Often, just knowing a vehicle tracking system is in use will be enough to encourage drivers to drive responsibly and get their jobs done in good time.

Of course, you shouldn't see vehicle tracking as a means of spying on your drivers, but as a means of keeping them efficient and regulating your fuel usage.

Plus, it can protect your business against an unsavory reputation – after all, a road incident involving one of your branded vehicles won't reflect well on you.

✔ Faster theft, breakdown and accident recovery

Of course, the ability to locate a vehicle at any given time has obvious safety and security benefits for your drivers and your vehicles, too.

From a crime detection perspective, the benefits are obvious – if a vehicle is stolen, you can track its whereabouts, helping the police to keep tabs on where it is and get it back.

Again, if a vehicle breaks down, its location can be confirmed within seconds and a recovery can be organised ASAP.

Similarly, should an accident happen, the driver's exact location can be pinpointed and passed to the relevant emergency services. If the accident is serious, this speed could save lives.

✔ Lower insurance premiums

We don't need to tell you – insurance is expensive! Fortunately, most insurance companies now offer reduced premiums to businesses that use fleet management systems. Here's why:

• Such businesses can produce accurate vehicle data, recorded and backed up by the system
• Vehicles that are fitted with tracking devices are more likely to be recovered if they're stolen

Such data will also help to reduce accident claims and unnecessary lawsuits that cost your businesses money year on year. Not to mention that these juicy savings might even offset the initial cost of installing your vehicle tracking tech.

✔ Easier maintenance and life cycle monitoring

By analysing all of your fleet's vehicles, fleet management systems can keep track of when each will need maintenance.

They can also calculate ideal replacement dates for all of your vehicles – after all, no vehicle performs well forever – and work out how much replacing each one will cost.

The benefits of fleet management for couriers, taxis and HGVs

The benefits of vehicle tracking can vary depending on the industry your fleet operates in. While fuel consumption can drop and general efficiency can increase for almost all businesses that implement a fleet management system, for some, certain benefits will outweigh others:

• Couriers – The biggest benefits for courier services are increased efficiency and clearer customer communication. When a new job comes in, you can dispatch the driver in the most suitable location, while real-time tracking enables you to set accurate delivery times and inform customers of any delays.

• Taxi companies – Fleet managers for taxi fleets will also benefit from increased dispatch efficiency and, consequently, heightened customer satisfaction, as customers won't have to wait as long for their taxi to arrive. Again, real-time tracking means you can provide exact ETAs and queue upcoming jobs for your cabs.

• Long-haul and HGV drivers – Vehicle tracking for long distance drivers is now mandatory (every HGV must be fitted with a tachograph), but additional fleet management can increase driver safety and improve driving efficiency. Tracking and geofencing mean drivers stick to set routes and speeds.

Next steps

Won over by the benefits of vehicle tracking and fleet management? If you're interested in setting up a system to help you manage your business fleet, we can help you find just the right one.

Simply tell us a bit about your business and its fleet using our free quote-matching service, and you'll receive quotes, tailored to you, from Expert Market-approved vehicle tracking suppliers so you can compare your options.

The process is free, fast and easy – why not give it a try today?