Companies with fleets of all sizes have had to deal with fuel wastage for decades to try to keep a handle on fuel costs. But what can you do right now to help lower your fuel costs?
Today, there are a many things you can do to reduce costs, and there are many tools available to managers and drivers that help control fuel costs. Let’s review some of the key areas to focus on to help you run a safe and efficient fleet:
Driver Behavior
Do you have an issue with poor driver behavior in your business? Unnecessary idling significantly pushes up fuel costs. Idling gets zero miles per gallon, and every two minutes uses the same amount of fuel it takes to drive one mile! That’s a huge waste which is coming off your bottom line. Aggressive driving not only wastes fuel from over revving and speeding, but also means higher maintenance costs. Tackling both of these areas and encouraging responsible driving helps you to lower fuel usage, maintenance and insurance premiums, reducing the total costs of vehicle ownership, as well as maintaining your reputation while on the road.
While rewarding or reprimanding driving style doesn’t consistently achieve optimal results, a system that provides active driver feedback focuses on engagement to change this behavior for the long term. A great example is OptiDrive 360, a complete approach to help drivers adapt a responsible driving style by providing valuable insights to both the fleet manager and the driver – delivering direct feedback to drivers before, during and after their trip. Optidrive operates using the following 4 principles:
Fuel Card Integration
The use of corporate fuel cards to manage fuel purchases has gained significant traction over the past decade. Customers quickly find that a fuel card account is accompanied by data and reports, lots of reports. However, without the full context of whom, when and where purchases were made, these reports are difficult to extract value from.
By combining telematics data (vehicle location, odometer, assigned driver and time) with detailed fuel card transaction activity (location, time, fuel type, cost, volume, etc.), these reports empower companies to increase visibility of transactions and enables better control of spending. It also helps to provide greater scrutiny on every purchase to identify unauthorized, inefficient and potentially fraudulent purchases.
Get insights on:
- When and where the vehicle’s fuel card was used
- Cost on fuel purchases of single vehicles and your entire fleet
- Amount of refueled gallons and fuel type
- Indications of potential fuel card misusage
Navigation/Traffic Avoidance
How many times have you received calls from customers looking for your techs? How many times have they missed a service time slot? Professional navigation with traffic-based routing enables employees to drive fewer miles and get to their destination using the quickest routes based on the time of day, so when there is an accident or some other reason for congestion, your drivers are able to avoid the affected roads and find the next best route. Fewer miles, with less downtime in traffic, results in fuel savings.
Route Planning
Do your employees take vehicles home? Do they go to their favorite restaurant for lunch that’s completely out of the way? Unsanctioned route deviations, afterhours or off-day usage can occur if you’re not monitoring your fleet 24/7. Route planning allows you to reduce miles driven, resulting in fuel savings.
Imagine being able to make more deliveries every day with the same amount of resources. Replacing manual processes with an automated route planning system can intelligently balance and optimize your daily routes with the click of a button.
Learn more about route planning in our whitepaper Reduce miles driven up to 30% with more optimal and accurate routes or through an integration partner on our app center for MyRouteOnline.
Vehicle Maintenance
Regular maintenance as recommended by the vehicle owner’s manual will help your vehicles achieve their best fuel economy.
If currently managing vehicle maintenance manually, consider adopting an automated process to help avoid missing needed repairs and utilizing live data to effectively schedule the maintenance. Keep in mind, the harder the vehicle is being driven; the more service & maintenance will be needed. It is very difficult to track this manually, making more important to use that data to save maintenance and fuel costs.
For more information on vehicle maintenance methods, refer to our guest blog post by our partner Fleetio, How to Forecast Vehicle Maintenance Using Telematics Data.
Telematics Systems
Real-time vehicle location with accurate ETA calculations ensures better dispatching decisions. By selecting the best operator for the closest job makes the fleet more efficient individually and as a whole. Telematics systems today can range from the basic GPS tracking to a complete in-vehicle management solution.
Lowering fuel costs is one of the more obvious reasons business owners invest in a fleet management solution. Since the selection of solutions is more complex than ever, check out our post on Picking the Right Telematics Systems
Find out more ways of how to save fuel in your fleet in our free guide 3 Fuel Saving Strategies for your Business.
39 thoughts on “6 Fuel Saving Tips for Your Fleet”
I Am Agree with all of your Fuel Saving Methods but I Suggest you go for Renewable Diesel. I have a team of more than 5 fleets and currently, I am using renewable diesel and happy with it.
I agree that you need to make sure you keep up on tracking fuel use. You should know when the last time you bought fuel was. It can help you make sure you always have enough and make sure everything is organized.
This is so awesome to read, this not wasting my time
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This site give all the information that I needed, thanks that i found this!
Very ncie article however if you really want to save fuel. Drive electric!
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Very nice article, however if you really want to save fuel. Drive electric!
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I like how you said that regular maintenance as recommended by the vehicle owner’s manual will help your vehicles achieve their best fuel economy. My dad has been repairing a fleet. Thanks for the tips on fuel saving tips for your fleet.
Thanks for the tip to get trucks regularly maintained in order to increase its fuel economy. In my opinion, one should find a truck maintenance provider that has a high Better Business Bureau rating. Choosing such a provider will help add more years to the fleet but also avoid road accidents and delays during jobs.
I like your point about how route planning can help reduce miles driven by employees. I have a friend who is looking into becoming a trucker, but he was wondering what kind of limits there would be when out on the road. I think ensuring you have a clear route would ensure you make your deliveries on time each day.
I appreciate how you mentioned that poorly tuned engines can reduce your miles per gallon, and likewise, your fuel efficiency. My friend just bought a fleet of vehicles for a business he’s thinking of starting, but he’s concerned that fuel expenses will rise too high for him to afford. I’m sure that, if he did start his own company, he’d really benefit from a touch screen flash tuning tool that can help him increase the overall efficiency of his engines and his vehicles so he can make a successful business.
This articles just hook me in with just the first paragraph ! So informative and helpful.
I didn’t realize that fleet management companies focus on aspects of finding drivers like vehicle maintenance because it can cut fuel consumption by 15%. In my mind, this would also make it more affordable to hire a fleet management company than do the work yourself. This makes me wonder how many fleet management companies are operating currently and if they are mainly in big cities.
I love the information I get from this post. Very useful and can be very helpful.
This articles just hook me in with just the first paragraph ! So informative and helpful.
I love the information I get from this post. Very useful and can be very helpful.
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Thanks for the fuel saving tips for your fleet. I like that pointed out that vehicle maintenance is an important part of that. I think that regular maintenance and repair for commercial trucks would help make sure that they are operating at their most efficient and working the way they should.
This is a great insight into the types of oils that you might need. Looking to get god maintenance to avoid leaks and clogged air filters is a wonderful idea. My sister was looking for a way to recycle oil and would love knowing this.
I simply wanted to write down a quick word to say thanks to you for those wonderful tips and hints you are showing on this site.
I agree. I enjoy reading your article and love how it so focus on helping others run a safe and efficient fleet.
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thank you webfleet fir giving me wonderful information
Thanks for sharing the amazing blog. I read it twice because of useful information. I have found a website about fuel cards for small business, check this one If anyone wants to know about fuel cards for small business. Thanks! Looking forward to similar information and will be happy to read more interesting things on this website…
Very useful information that I will pass along to my clients seeking engine detailing after abusing their cars. You rock!
Great post that’s short and straight to the point
Thanks for the tips. Anyone can implement these points and save some gas and money while they do it. I appreciate the information and education very much. I could improve on my drive behavior.
Great share!
It was interesting to learn about how fuel can be saved by reducing the miles driven, less time in traffic, and avoiding aggressive driving. I can imagine that it could be really useful for a business to make sure that they can be more effective with their fleet and vehicles so that they will work better. Getting some help from a professional could be really useful and allow them to be more effective and make more drives more often.
I appreciate how you mentioned that poorly tuned engines can reduce your miles per gallon, and likewise, your fuel efficiency. My friend just bought a fleet of vehicles for a business he’s thinking of starting, but he’s concerned that fuel expenses will rise too high for him to afford
Thanks for taking time in sharing this great post. Would love to visit this site often for the good content.
You are welcome anytime!
Honestly, a great post, and would love to see more content like this. I struggle to keep my gas mileage high because of all the hills and like to drive fast.
Nice tips, this can help a lot!! moving a piano
These really save us a lot for our company here in Dallas, TX. It’s a restaurant vent cleaning company by the way.
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This is an awesome addition to all. Tips you’ve given out on fuel saving for your fleet are amazing. Thank you for sharing this! Good suggestion. Great post that’s short and straight to the point. Keep sharing such informative posts with us.
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