Managing a fleet of vehicles is not easy. Every day you’ve a long list of tasks to take care of to make sure your cars, vans or trucks are used productively. Fail to do so and your business suffers. Without full control of your fleet, it’s easy to find yourself hit by missed schedules, poor driver safety and higher fuel costs.
This is why more companies are automating some or all of their daily fleet management tasks. Adopting digital rather than manual processes to take care of things like communicating a daily schedule or managing drivers in the field can reduce the risk of human error, free up time and control spending.
So how does this work in practice? Let’s take a look at some of the tasks that could be taken off your plate with a fleet management solution.
Setting the daily schedule
Do you have a number of orders to fulfill today? You’ll want your team to get them all done with the lowest mileage possible. A fleet management solution speeds up and simplifies your planning. It identifies the best suited driver for each job and can help you set the route and sequence of visits in the most efficient way.
Keeping your drivers on the right path
Once your vehicles are on the road, you want to track their progress. A telematics solution lets you monitor their position from your office on a clear map. It also provides updates on traffic and road events. That enables you to change plans dynamically when needed to ensure you stay on schedule.
Communicating with your team
Whether you have one or one hundred drivers on the road, communication is essential. Even the best planned schedule or route might need to be adjusted when the unexpected hits. Digitising your processes let’s you send clear instructions straight from your office to the driver.
For example, TomTom Telematics’ Driver Terminal, which sits on your driver’s dashboard, reads your messages aloud. Your team don’t need to pull over to check new instructions, maintaining both productivity and driver safety.
Monitoring and improving driver behaviour
As well as knowing where your drivers are, you also want to know how they’re driving. Poor behaviour behind the wheel means higher fuel costs, higher maintenance costs and lower driver safety.
By digitising your processes, you can record crucial driving data like speed, acceleration and braking speed. This information paints a clear picture of how safely and economically your vehicles are used on the road. With this, you can decide whether training is needed to improve things.
Recording working times
Whether you need to register your drivers’ working times for payroll purposes or to comply with EU legislation, some vehicle telematics systems are capable of doing this automatically.
There’s plenty of ways that increased digitisation can help you manage your day-to-day fleet tasks. Want to find out more? Then get in touch with one of our consultants today. They’d love to tell you all about how a fleet management solution helps make your job easier, your drivers safer and your business more productive.
