How To Choose Your Fleet Tracking Software Company
There are key principles that you must look at before you can choose which fleet tracking software company is right for you. With hundreds of them on the market today, it can be hard to choose which one is right. Keep in mind that if you’re a small fleet under 100 vehicles, you will likely not want to go with a large-scale solution. Large fleet solutions were created for over 100 vehicles, and pricing for services of this size may not reflect your budget.
Identify Features That Will Suit Your Fleet
Before you can shop for fleet tracking services, you must know what your budget is. Before you start your journey, you want to find and how much you’re willing to spend on it. Here are some things to keep in mind while you are shopping around for the right fleet tracking option.
- How much does it cost? And do these fees match your budget availability?
- Find one that is capable of sending out notifications like push alerts, alerting you of dangerous situations or poor driving habits.
- It has a customizable dashboard which makes the interface easy to use.
- There must be an ability to track behavior and plan routes.
- For the best experience, you must be able to use it mobile for 24/7 connectivity.
- Offers free customer support
Reporting
Your fleet tracking solution should offer a reporting option. These reports can help you take the data that is compiled and turn it into something useful for your fleet. In terms of fuel efficiency and driver safety, you can use the information you receive to implement a driving protocol, which will keep your fleet safe and help you conserve fuel, reducing your costs.
The Benefits Of Using GPS Fleet Tracking For Your Fleet
It isn’t easy being the owner/operator of a fleet. As a manager, there are a lot of responsibilities that you must take care of every day, including paperwork and ensuring that your fleet is driving safely. When you incorporate a GPS tracking system into your fleet operations, you can rest assured that you are getting the most up-to-date information. You also get the opportunity to keep track of your fleet without actually tailing them.
What exactly are the benefits of using a GPS fleet tracking solution?
Reduced Operating Expenses
When you invest in a GPS fleet tracking solution, you get the opportunity to choose the best and shortest routes for your vehicles and optimize them. Most of these options also allow you to reduce fuel consumption, reduce overtime costs and increase the bottom dollar.
Reduce insurance costs
Not all insurance companies will give you a discount if you implement a fleet tracking system. Check with your insurance company before you implement one to make sure that it will still fit in your budget, even if they won’t give you a discount. Insurance companies work with algorithms and numbers, and these are a huge part of creating your fleet’s premiums. Insurance companies like to see risk reduced in these instances, which is why using GPS fleet tracking can help reduce the risk of theft or increase the recovery rate if theft of a vehicle occurs.
Keeping the Customer Happy
Happy customers return, and you want a loyal customer base. When your customers know exactly when they can expect your fleet to show up, that makes them happy. With GPS tracking solutions, if an urgent call is made for your fleet, you can dispatch the closest one to the customer – lowering the response time and thus making the customer happier.
Eliminate Unpredictability
When implementing a fleet tracking solution, you also reduce the amount of unpredictability your fleet may emit. When you are more predictable, you give customers more accurate delivery times or services in real-time.
Real-Time Location
Most of your GPS Fleet Management systems provide you with real-time asset/fleet location services. These real-time locations are often updated using Wi-Fi or through wireless networks. When you know exactly where your vehicles are on the road, you can anticipate the next moves and how long before they reach their destination.
Simplify Maintenance
Using a fleet tracking software provides you with telematics features that can update you on vehicle diagnostics like fuel level, engine temperature, and more. It’s important to keep track of number of miles your fleet vehicle is driven each day. You can ensure that you are getting oil changes at the correct intervals when you have this tracking measure in place. The worst thing you can do is ignore preventative maintenance. It’s If you ignore preventative maintenance, you may end up prematurely replacing a fleet vehicle which is probably not in your budget right now. Fleet vehicles can cost over 20,000 dollars – and I’m not sure what’s in your wallet right now, but chances are slim you are planning to replace the vehicles now.
Improve Fleet Safety
Having real-time updates on your fleet can help you improve the fleet’s safety. You can see when there is hard braking, idling, speeding, and other unflattering actions taken by your drivers. Not only is safety important, but by exhibiting safe actions, you will be known as a brand that is courteous, kind, thoughtful, and safe.
The last thing you want is your brand to be associated with is aggressive driving techniques and other actions that may leave a sour taste in potential customers’ mouths.
Reduces Paperwork
Managers spend a lot of time with paperwork. Why? If there was a way to digitize everything and make it simple for you to come out from behind the desk each day, why wouldn’t you try it? Using a fleet tracking solution should allow use for all for easier data accumulation, and it is all automated, which means you no longer have to sit and input all the information from the day before.
How Fleets Use GPS Tracking For Better Fuel Efficiency
Saving money in a business is one of the most important factors you have to consider. One way that your fleet can reduce its cost is by becoming more fuel-efficient.
But what is fuel efficiency?
When looking at your fleet vehicle, the fuel efficiency is how much energy your vehicle can get from the fuel that is put in it. The more energy a vehicle extracts from the fuel, the greater the fuel efficiency. For example, if your vehicle has to work harder, it is going to use more gas – you want to work smarter, not harder when it comes to your fleet.
There are different factors that affect your fuel efficiency. Different types of vehicles play a huge role – trucks, buses, and SUVs often have higher fuel consumption rates. If you use a car, chances are your fuel economy is going to be much better. Incorporating a hybrid? Even better!
If you notice that you’re using a lot of fuel, there are some factors that you might want to look into and see if you can eliminate some of the causes.
1. One of the most efficient ways to minimize the amount of fuel you use is to optimize your fleet routes. Traffic, personal preference, construction, and accidents are all ways that you will inadvertently increase the amount of time your fleet vehicles are on the road or idling this can eat through your gasoline quicker than you think.
2. Driving behavior plays a major role in how efficient your fleet is using its fuel when your driver is engaging in behavior that is questionable. Instances of hard braking, speeding, and idling are all factors that must be considered. You must eliminate these on daily rides if you want to increase your fuel efficiency.
3. Maintenance is important when you have a fleet. More importantly, preventative maintenance. Preventative maintenance is the act of addressing issues before they become a large problem—things like changing your oil at regular intervals, having your battery checked, and getting a tune-up are all ways that you can keep your fleet healthy
The problem is when preventative maintenance is not done. Your fleet could end up needing to be replaced, which is a lot more expensive. Also, if your vehicle is not tuned up properly, it isn’t running as efficiently as it could, which also consumes more fuel.
Depending on the type of fleet you operate, large loads may be pulling excessive loads. A heavy load not only weighs down your vehicle but it also slows it down, making it consume more fuel.
How Can Using A Fleet Tracking Solution Reduce Your Fuel Consumption?
Using fleet tracking helps you decrease the amount of idling and gives you an insight into your driver efficiency—the more efficient your driver, the less fuel consumption, and the more you profit. You can use the analytics that your fleet tracking software compiles and put it to good use. Improving the overall efficiency can also help to eliminate the losses in conjunction with your fleet.
Ways That Drivers Can Improve Their Fuel Efficiency
There are four ways that a driver in your fleet could help improve fuel economy on their own.
- Cruise Control – which will help maintain a constant speed. However, this shouldn’t be used on uphill travel or in heavy traffic. This can actually decrease the fuel efficiency, but on long stretches of highway, it is a good idea for your fleet.
- Coasting – drivers lose their forward momentum each time they use their brakes to stop a vehicle. If they anticipate the oncoming traffic, pedestrians in crosswalks, and the traffic lights in advance, they can determine how long it will take for them to slow down when they do this. They can improve fuel efficiency by coasting instead of suddenly braking. This will also help with preventative maintenance by keeping the brakes in better condition.
- Stable Speed – drivers can maintain a stable speed for better fuel efficiency. There are statistics out there that show that quite a bit of fuel is consumed when a vehicle’s speed suddenly changes like increasing to rapid decreasing. However, if you want to maintain an optimal speed for your vehicle, this is usually between 35 and 50 miles per hour. Well, this won’t work on the interstate, but that’s what the cruise control is for.
- Reduce Idling Time – idling causes a lot of wear and tear on a vehicle, even if you can’t physically see it. It’s possible that by eliminating excessive idling within the fleet, that more money can be saved annually because there will be less wasted fuel
Fleetr Could Be The Right Fleet Tracking Solution For Your Business
Fleetr is a tailor-made solution for small business fleets. It offers real-time location driving status with 60-second updates for every vehicle on your fleet. Fleetr allows for you to view maps and satellite from your desktop computer or your mobile phone. Historical data, like trip history, can be seen for every vehicle using this solution.
Fleetr wants to keep drivers safe. By using alerts for aggressive driving, like speeding and hard braking, Fleetr notifies you when there’s a problem with your fleet driver and their behavior. Driving reports can be compiled offering driver scores and trends over time using the GPS tracking solution.
Industries That Fleetr Can Assist
As we said before, Fleetr was made for small fleet businesses, but who exactly uses Fleetr. Fleetr services a host of different industries, for example:
- moving companies
- landscaping companies
- HVAC companies
- cannabis companies
- pest control companies
- and so many more
Each of these industries can be large or small, but when looking at it from the small business perspective, adding a fleet tracking solution to the mix can create a better flow to the business.
GPS Tracking and Driver Accountability
Driver accountability is one of the most important features of using a GPS tracking solution. Using the technology, you also can evaluate and improve your driver behavior and make sure that they’re running at the right amount of efficiency and productivity. Driver accountability also includes ensuring that drivers are on their best behavior on the road. For example, you want to reduce the personal use of the car and eliminate a dress of driving. Even if you allow your drivers to take the cars home. You don’t want them using them for after-hours errands
Visibility is a major characteristic of using fleet management software. You want to ensure that drivers are arriving at their destinations on time, avoiding scenic routes, and not padding their hours – costing you more money and overtime fees.
Fleet tracking isn’t just a benefit to your company, though. Using it as a tool, you can reward good driving behavior and improve employee retention.
There’s an effective way to do this.
Using Fleetr’s reporting feature, you can learn which drivers are driving the best and which ones need improvement. Using what you know from the historical data can give you an idea of what training needs to be offered.
Gamification is one way to incentivize your drivers. It’s as simple as running monthly quarterly contests.
What Do You Get With Fleetr?
Some of the biggest perks of using Fleetr (besides only paying $9.99 per month per vehicle for tracking services) is the ability to view vehicles on a live view map. You can also create geofenced areas and receive alerts when drivers exit the area. Get alerts when driver behavior such as speeding, hard braking, idling, and other extremes occur.
See how your drivers are doing with the Fleetr leaderboard. You can use the insight to gauge the safety and efficiency of each driver, view the vehicle activity, and all the route data—historical route and driver locations are also available. Get up-to-date information on your fleet performance. Gain insight on your vehicle help and though when preventative maintenance is required.
How To Set Up Fleetr
Fleetr is an easy solution to get up and running. Once you go online and input the number of vehicles you plan to track and make your first monthly payment, Fleetr will mail you your hardware. You plug in the hardware in the OBD-II port, and it takes under five minutes to install. While you wait for your mail, you can set up your app and all the information on each vehicle and its driver.
Other Fleetr Opportunities
Fleetr has partnered with Trak4 to help track equipment using Fleetr’s state-of-the-art technology. This allows you to know exactly where each and every asset is located at any time. The tracker is a simple to use tracking device that you mount on your vehicle, trailer, or equipment. You can even place it inside of a compartment. All of the devices are weatherproof and are made for indoor and outdoor use.
There are two different tiers to the asset tracker that Fleetr now offers. Upfront, the device costs $50. If you want one-minute updates, you’re looking at $12.99 per month. Hourly updates are less expensive, only costing $9.99 per month. Keep in mind that this is in addition to the monthly payment you make with your Fleetr fleet tracking subscription.
Insurance
California and Florida residents can now get affordable rates using a fast quoting process from a dedicated Fleetr insurance team. The same friendly and reliable support you have gotten to know with Fleetr is now available in the insurance industry. If you want to learn more about the insurance options provided by Fleetr, call 650-422-3894 or email insurance@fleetr.com.
Taking the Next Step
It can be easy to become overwhelmed by all the different fleet tracking options that are available for small fleets today, but that doesn’t mean that you have to fall victim to being overwhelmed by them. For the most part, fleet tracking is safe forward, and it all comes down to asking yourself – what do you really want from this solution?
For most small fleet owners, just knowing where their fleet vehicles are at any given moment is enough to bring a sigh of relief – but for others, it’s the perks that come with it. Things like reporting, reviewing historical data, and getting personalized driver reports is worth spending the extra on fleet tracking software. Ultimately, the choice is yours, and you must decide which of these features you need for your fleet.
What are you waiting for?
