Fleet Optimization Strategies: How to Maximise Your Fleet’s Growth?

When you play with some building blocks, there is a structure to the way you assemble a tower. It is this hierarchy of steps that make sure that your tower does not topple at minute trembles. Optimising a fleet business to make sure that it stands profitable even in a changing market needs planning.

This blog will discuss all the blocks you need to build a strong optimisation strategy for a fleet business. As Dante Alighieri stated,

“Be as a tower firmly set; Shakes not its top for any blast that blows.“

Creating a Strong Foundation For Fleet Optimisation Strategies

The first step in forming an effective fleet optimisation strategy is to get a stable and strong foundation for your fleet management software. One of the best options for fleet businesses to eliminate any kind of inconsistency from their operations is by investing in automation technology.

A fleet management system is a toolkit with all the necessary solutions that the system needs for optimising its fleet operations. This system can help managers track and monitor their vehicles even from remote areas. Thus, reducing the need for any kind of manual planning, that can be as time consuming as it can be error prone.

Building Blocks of the Fleet Optimisation Process

The building blocks of fleet optimisation are the solutions that the fleet management system has to offer. The blocks that are most commonly used in the industry are:

Driver Behaviour Monitoring Solutions

Careless driving is the leading cause of accidents and vehicle damage. Ignoring such practices can lead to heavy expenditures for fleet businesses, eating up their profits. Manually tracking drivers’ live activity to ensure they adopt safety guidelines can be difficult and time consuming at the same time.

Remotely trying to see if the vehicles are not overspeeding, driving harshly, or idling is nearly impossible. But managers cannot personally tag along with their drivers on duty, can they?

The driver behaviour monitoring system being a building block in your optimisation strategy can be the step towards adding an extra layer of security to your business.

Fuel Monitoring Solutions

With large fleet businesses comes the issue of high fuel costs. These high fuel costs can be because of two reasons, the first being high fuel consumption and the second being rising purchasing prices. This is why the fleet management system has the right solutions to make your optimisation process easier. These include:

• Refill and Drainage Alerts: These alerts reduce any kind of leakages or pilferage that might affect the fleet’s fuel consumption. As soon as there is a sudden decrease or surge in the fuel levels of the tank, managers receive alerts. They can investigate the reason behind such alerts and see if the drainage is due to leakage or any form of pilferage. 
• Live Fuel Tracking: For the vehicles running on the road, managers can access their vehicle’s real time fuel levels. This means they can regulate when their driver’s purchase fuel even when managing the fleet remotely. Such activities help businesses cut down their losses as well. 
• Fuel Average: The system draws the analysis on the average fuel a fleet consumes. Thus, managers can see when and why their fleet is losing money and can tie any loose threads in the process. Fuel can weigh heavily on a business’ expenditure and thus these solutions can help managers understand their consumption pattern and plan their budget around it.

Route Planning Solutions

Fleet management systems will be little help to managers if they still have to plan the routes for their vehicles manually. Thus, the route planning solutions make this process very easy. All managers have to do is mark their desired halts and their sequence to the system. Telematics software creates the best suited route for managers without any hassle, saving them time and boosting productivity.

But that is not where the solutions end. Here are some features that make optimisation a lot easier for fleet managers:

• ETA: Managers get real-time updates about their vehicle’s location and the predicted time they will reach the destination/checkpoint. This makes planning all the easier, especially for cases like warehouse slotting. 
• Geofence: The system allows managers to mark a virtual boundary on the map. It alerts them every time a vehicle enters or exits this boundary. Thus, tracking if the vehicle made it to all the necessary stops becomes easier. This feature can also help fleets ensure that their vehicles do not accidentally enter any dangerous areas by marking them as geofences on the map. 
• POD: Drivers don’t have to stress about providing proof of their tasks. The system automatically marks their presence at the delivery. But drivers also have manual alternatives like e-signatures, OTP, and QR codes to provide their POD.

Video Telematics Solutions

Safety is always a priority for any fleet business and having technological aid can help them achieve this. Fleet arrangement system allows businesses to include dashcams with their telematics system. This makes the transition of visual data a lot simpler, allowing managers to supervise their fleet activities remotely. 

This system has two sets of features, both have different purposes. Driver Monitoring System (DMS) helps managers monitor their drivers to detect any instance of distracted driving. Advanced Driver Assistance System (ADAS) on the other hand secures the vehicle by keeping an eye on the external areas of the vehicle. It alerts drivers if their vehicle is in danger. Managers also receive alerts in case the driver adopts unethical driving practices like traffic signal violation.

Asset Tracking Solutions

Fleet businesses need to maintain the safety of several things, their vehicles, drivers and also their assets. These assets can be in the form of consignments or heavy duty equipment. The fleet management system needs to track these assets which is where these solutions come into play.

Asset tracking systems can help fleet businesses get the precise locations of their consignments and machines in real-time. This can also help create working hour reports for the machines, ensuring minimum deterioration due to overwork. 

Stacking the Blocks of the Perfect Fleet Management Strategy

So now that you have all the right stacking blocks for your tower, the next step is to use these blocks to make architectural marvels. Not using even the best solutions properly will lead to failure and losses. Let us understand how the fleet management system can be used correctly to ensure that you are able to make the best out of automation:

Utilising All Features

The solutions that your system has to offer have been integrated after much consideration, going through several practical use cases. But several businesses become satisfied building basic structures with only a small portion of the block they are given. This can lead to your business falling behind in the market in comparison to a business utilising all its resources. 

While the primary features and solutions are important, several other features give businesses an added advantage for fleet optimisation. Some of these features include:

• Announcements: This feature allows managers to broadcast their message to all their users, transporters, and managers. It can help businesses communicate their messages regarding system downtime or network issues that might hinder fleet operations.
• Nearby: Emergency situations can be stressful for both the managers and drivers. This is why the nearby feature makes dealing with these situations a lot easier. The system can provide managers with a list of facilities like fuel stations and hospitals closest to the vehicle’s live location.
• Admin App: The admin app allows technicians to add and update vehicles without any meddling with other fleet operations. They can create a database for their GPS devices independent of the fleet managers. Managers get to assign tasks without any threat of data leakage as well. They can choose how much fleet data technicians get access to.
• Servicing and Maintenance: Autonomous reminders make fleet maintenance much more error-proof. Managers can set reminders for their vehicle check-ups and the system will send them notifications a few days prior. Thus, better quality vehicles run for a longer time.

Exploring the Market

Before choosing the right blocks to build your tower, it is important that the managers experiment with the kind of materials and fits of the blocks. This is why exploring the options available in the market and looking for fleet management systems that can help your business can be very beneficial.

Many software providers allow their prospective clients to take a demo of the system to test its compatibility with their operations. Making use of such opportunities is the most crucial step in the software selection process.

Training Drivers

Not all drivers are well-versed in ethical driving practices. Some of them might be breaking rules or underperforming because of lacking knowledge. This is why it is important that managers make use of the data that the system presents them with to understand where their drivers are lacking and construct training programs for them. This will help boost the productivity of underperforming employees. 

Trained drivers are more aware of road safety measures. 

Update the Software

The market is ever-evolving, especially when it comes to technological advancements.

Fleet managers need to ensure that the system they invest in is updated to the industry trends and moulds itself easily.  A scalable system can make this process a lot easier. This means that buying a system like TrackoBit is the best option for fleet businesses. With regular updates for the managers, this software can help fleet businesses improve their profitability and productivity. 

A well updated system also protects the fleet against cyber attacks. This is because the developers are constantly looking at new variations of viruses and building preventive measures for these systems. But if managers do not update their system regularly, they leave their system vulnerable to phishing attacks and other data leaks. This can affect their overall productivity.

Communicate with Your Software Provider

When investing in a fleet management system, it is important that managers maintain a good relationship with the software provider. This will help them keep up with the updates that are in the pipeline for the system.

Things to be Careful of While Using a Fleet Management System

Precautionary measures are necessary when working on optimising your fleet operations. Going overboard with your strategies can do more harm than good. Let us look at some of the things that managers need to be careful of when aiming to build a sturdy tower from their building blocks:

Why is it Important to Invest in a Good Quality Fleet Management System?

Of course, failing to invest in good quality blocks can end up in deformed or lopsided towers. Not an ideal situation is it?

Fleet managers must ensure that the fleet management system they invest in has previous customer reviews to support their claims. Not having a reliable fleet monitoring system can be the reason for several inconsistencies in the fleet business. Here is a checklist that you should use to see if the system is a match for your business or not:

• Customer support
• Hardware integration
• Customisable solutions
• Live Tracking
• Report Generation

Not doing good research earlier can translate to losses and low productivity later. A stitch in time saves nine after all.

Over Dependence on Automation

Automation is a slippery slope to climb and it is essential that fleet managers know how to strike an equilibrium between manual planning and the system’s strategizing.

Let us understand this via an example. Imagine a fleet that is trying to cut down its expenditure. But the manager does not make any variations to the routes that the system creates. This means that even the paths with more tolls are forwarded to drivers without any consideration. This might seem like a small expenditure but can account for a lot more in the case of large fleets. 

Managers need to assist and supervise the system to convert the planning into optimisation instead. AI is not useful till they are operated via the EQ of humans

Not Customising Your Software

We mentioned above that investing in customisable software is not a luxury but a necessity; Even with building blocks, there need to be blocks of all shapes and sizes to build sturdy towers. Managers need to see which solutions are useful for their industry and eliminate all others from the system.

The waste management industry is more concerned about its route planning than they are about its driver behaviour. On the other hand, the logistics industry needs to prioritise its asset protection, which is possible only by adopting good driving practices. 

Fleet managers need to analyse their fleet’s requirements and ensure that the solutions they invest in are necessary to avoid chaotic planning.

Trust TrackoBit to Stable Your Tower

When building a tower from small building blocks, each step of the way becomes extremely important. One misplacement and the entire tower will be in jeopardy. Similar is your fleet business, one misstep during the planning stage can have repercussions in the form of losses and declining productivity.

But TrackoBit has your back. With renowned solutions and amazing technical support, your fleet business can tackle any operational challenges with ease. With results that speak for themselves, TrackoBit can make your optimisation process a lot simpler.