Fleet Management: Cost Savings Calculations

Do you know what it costs to run your fleet effectively? As a small fleet owner or manager, you have likely crunched the numbers more than once to determine exactly where your revenue and profits are going. One part of fleet management is introducing a telematics design that helps you reduce the amount of time and money being wasted in your operation.

Depending on how your operations currently are, you may not think you can afford to incorporate one of these telematic designed fleet management systems. The truth is that you cannot afford NOT to incorporate one. Do you know how much your vehicle depreciation is per year? Do you know how to save over a hundred dollars per vehicle per month fuel alone?

Let fleet management solutions show you how to save.

Effectively Calculating Fleet Costs

One of the most important parts of owning a fleet is the total cost of ownership (TCO). You should always be looking to lower this amount, no matter how long you have been in operation and how efficient you think your fleet is. You have to be willing to use fleet tracking telematics to gather the information you need about your vehicles and drivers.

Understanding the Cost of Your Fleet

Being a cost-effective fleet manager starts by taking an inventory of your current expenses. To see what current expenses your fleet places on your business, look at these factors:

• The fleet vehicle price (new), the depreciation, and the cost to replace it (including interest)
• The cost you have to pay to keep these vehicles on the road
• The costs you incur maintaining these vehicles
• Expenses that result from downtime
• How much you pay your drivers (also the amount of overtime they turn in)

As you begin looking into these various factors, where do you see your costs piling up? It is possible that the problem starts in one area and trickles down into the other areas of operating your fleet. These factors eventually find their way to you, making you pay for it.

What Fleet Management Offers Your Business

Fleet management solutions have been around since the 1980s but are becoming increasingly popular because of mobile availability. The fleet tracking software uses GPS and mobile networks to communicate with the applications that provide management information about the fleet and the driver. With the right fleet management solution, you can learn what steps to take to ensure that you are making the most cost-effective decisions regarding your fleet.

 

GPS Tracking

Curious where your driver is when they are late coming back from their shift? With GPS tracking, you can see the location history of the fleet vehicle and driver. Idling is one of the most costly actions that a driver can do, often wasting fuel as a result. See where drivers are idling and what you can do to fix their downtime.

Analytical Reporting

Weekly reporting about efficiency and tips on how to decrease overall costs is one way that fleet management software reducing the cost of your fleet easy. Get tips and tricks to find out what you need to do to maximize the overall efficiency and lower your associated operating costs.

Driver Behaviors

Learn more about the driving patterns of your fleet drivers by seeing reports of driving habits. Driving habits are one of the largest causes of fuel inefficiency in a fleet. Fleet management software looks for hard braking, rapid acceleration, aggressive driving behaviors, idling, and dangerous driving patterns. These are all factors of poor fuel economy for the fleet.

Maintenance Scheduling

Part of maintaining a fleet and reducing overall costs requires you to stay up to date on maintenance. Well maintained vehicles last longer, requiring fewer large scale maintenance projects. If you are taking your vehicles in regularly for service, the mechanics can often spot and fix problems before they become big ones. You save yourself the trouble of needing to replace vehicles before it is time.

Fleet Costs at a Glance

There are two primary costs associated with your fleet vehicles – direct and indirect costs. Your indirect costs are the smallest grouping of costs that you come into contact with. These include the costs for software, hardware, staff, and facilities. Direct costs require more of a breakdown, including your variable operational costs and fixed costs.

Variable Operating Costs

Your variable operating costs include items that are either unavoidable or avoidable. Your unavoidable costs include things like fuel, tires, maintenance, breakdowns, and accidents. Avoidables are fines, toll roads, subsistence, and bonuses. When looking at the avoidables, you can use fleet tracking software to provide you with the locations of such tolls and how to avoid them. Maintaining safe operational speeds keep you from the risk of receiving fines. Consider looking at your current bonus policy to see if there is room for improvement. Are you just handing out money when there is no improvement?

Fixed Costs

The fixed costs that you will encounter in your fleet are divided into capital costs and operational costs. The capital costs are the depreciation and financing for your vehicles, plus the amount it would take if you were to finance more vehicles. The fixed operational costs include what you pay your drivers, the insurance for the fleet and the business, and the taxes and rates you must pay for the business, fleet vehicles, and drivers. Fixed costs are harder to adjust, especially those that are set by other companies or providers.

How Fleetr Can Help Reduce Your Fleet Operation Costs

There is almost no way to know specifically how much fleet management software can save an individual company. Many different factors play into these amounts, such as the type of vehicle (cars and trucks have different fuel economy), the price of gas on any given day, the pay rate of your drivers, and the list goes on.

Fleetr can make it possible to save in many areas of your operational expenses. Fleetr isn’t like the other types of fleet tracking solutions. For only $9.99 per month per vehicle, we offer an affordable solution to your fleet management needs. Fleetr is easy to install and easy to use. Are you ready to see what Fleetr can do to help reduce your costs?

GPS Tracking, Driver Accountability, Fuel Economy

Many different savings opportunities exist when using fleet management software. These opportunities help to reduce your costs, resulting in increased revenue and profits. From GPS tracking and routes, driver accountability, and fuel economy savings – Fleetr has the tools to make savings possible.

The habits of your drivers could be costing you hundreds of extra dollars per month on fuel alone. Fleetr looks at their habits, like hard braking, rapid acceleration, idling, and aggressive driving. Each week you get reports on who your most efficient drivers are and who needs some work. You can receive push notifications when driving habits are especially dangerous. This alert allows you to contact the driver and put an end to it.

These types of alerts, in conjunction with the GPS capability, make drivers more accountable for their actions on the road. When your driver is more conscious of their actions, they are less likely to make a mistake driving or drive in ways that lower the efficiency of the fleet. You can help create more efficient routes for your drivers when using the fleet management system with GPS location services.

Fuel efficiency goes up when you use GPS tracking like this. You can save up to $200 per month per vehicle just by using the efficiency tips provided to you weekly through the analytical reports from Fleetr. We tell you what changes you can make to become more efficient with your driving patterns as a fleet.

Insurance, Maintenance, Fleet Reliability

Some insurance companies offer discounts to businesses for their fleet if they have a tracking program being utilized. This discount can help reduce the fixed operational costs that your business is facing due to the fleet. Over time these insurance costs may reduce on their own, but it never hurts to find out if having a fleet management system will help aid the reduced rate a little early.

Maintenance is something that a fleet manager worries about constantly. Fleet vehicles never seem to be on the same maintenance schedule since they are driven in different intervals and miles. Keeping up with their added mileage and needs for routine maintenance can be burdensome. Fleetr helps keep track of your maintenance schedule for you. Keep track of your oil changes and tire rotations, all from the app on your smartphone.

When you focus on the maintenance of your fleet, you also increase the reliability of it. There is often very little wiggle room in your operational budget to pay for a new fleet vehicle without warning. Another loan, another payment, all so you can replace a vehicle that breaks down due to poor maintenance. You can increase the lifespan and reliability by using a fleet management application.

Why Fleetr is Your Best Solution For Cost Savings

Fleetr makes saving money on your fleet easy through a cost-effective solution that is only $9.99 per month per vehicle. We also cater to the small business fleets and do not require a minimum number of vehicles each month. You pay for the vehicles you want to track. The best part, we won’t charge you if you decide that it isn’t working for you. Just send back the OBD II port device.

There is no way of instantly creating savings for you, especially if you have been running in an analog position for so long. You may not have the protocols in place to facilitate a technologically advanced solution. But never fear! Fleetr offers you access to your weekly reports, historical data, and so much more.

To learn more about what Fleetr can do for your cost savings, contact us to schedule a demo or additional information.