Fleet Gamification: Optimizing Your Fleet’s Trips

Optimize your fleet trips by incorporating a competitive spark in your drivers through gamification and ensure safe driving practices.

Buzz…Buzz

Gamification – the word that is causing a lot of buzz among fleet companies. It has emerged as the one smart tool allowing fleet businesses to tackle some of their biggest challenges. For example, logistics company DHL has leveraged gamification by holding annual driver safety rodeos, and 83% of employees that receive gamified training are more productive and motivated to work.

But what exactly is gamification? Is it like playing video games? Well, not exactly that.

Gamification means applying gaming principles to non-game contexts to improve users’ engagement. In addition, it is a catalyst for enriching training, productivity, and evaluation environment.

Using it with fleet vehicles can help to improve driver behavior, decrease maintenance costs, and ensure the fleet’s green credentials. Continue reading to know how exactly you, too, can gamify your fleet operations.

Why Are Fleet Businesses Going Ga Ga about Gamification

Gamification has proper science backing its success. Allow us to explain: 

It uses human psychology by triggering the parts of the brain that releases dopamine. Then, those same parts tell the brain to copy the actions to earn rewards and release dopamine. As long as the drivers are rewarded and appreciated for their achievements, and they are happy to replicate them.

“Gamification is 75% psychology and 25% technology.” – Gabe Zichermann.

Through gamification, even the most mundane tasks become exciting and rewarding. And humans crave to compete and to receive rewards for their good behavior. This is exactly what gamification taps into in order to bring out the desired results. It is an excellent way to inspire healthy competition, engage drivers, and improve the learning process, thus leaving participants with a sense of achievement.

Gamification and Fleet Operation – Explosive Formula

Would you believe us if we tell you that incorporating gamification with your fleet trips will allow you to reap massive benefits? Have a look at these crazy numbers that fleet companies have achieved due to gamification:

• Reduction in overspeeding by 21%
• Reduction in distracted driving by 59%
• Overall reduction of collision risk by 49%

But did you know that 51% of ongoing vehicle maintenance, repair, and fuel costs are due to negative driver behavior? Through gamification, companies can bring down ongoing costs and translate them into financial benefits. Wondering how? Continue reading.

Gamification incentivizes safer, more efficient driving. This encourages drivers to reduce harsh braking, acceleration, and cornering. Thus reducing the speed of wear and tear of the vehicles and improving environmental impact. Also, it offers another benefit to the company – less vehicle damage leading to lower insurance costs.                     

Impact Of Gamification on Fleet Operation

It’s truly astonishing what better driving can do. But, unfortunately, as a fleet manager, you already have your hands full, and urging your drivers to improve performance can be exhausting. This is where gamification comes in, as it automates the learning process in an exciting manner.

Improves Engagement

Drivers often struggle with the mundaneness of their job and the feeling of isolation. Gamification can improve engagement in the fleet industry, leading to a boost in productivity. Since it involves competition, either individually or within a team, drivers are assigned goals and tasks to complete. Like in any video game, for any driver to gain more scores and move up the ladder, they must complete certain tasks while following certain rules and regulations.

This keeps the drivers engaged and urges them to do their best at their job, as the goal is to win rewards for themselves and the team.

Promotes Healthy Competition

You can use gamification to initiate healthy competition among fleet drivers. For example, using analytical dashboards and leaderboards to know which driver performs best. As drivers view their own ranks and driver scores and of others, they will be motivated to move up, causing them to work even better. This also brings transparency of data into use. 

This healthy competition is great for getting the ball rolling as all the drivers are eyeing that star performer’s spot. This form of motivation uses positive reinforcements, which are more effective.

Encourages Change In Driver Behavior

Studies show that training received during gamification tends to stick longer in the mind of the players,  in this case, drivers. This is useful for fleet drivers as gamification urges them to indulge in good driving practices. For example, taking safety precautions seriously, like driving within the speed limit, avoiding being distracted, etc. 

This is beneficial for fleet businesses as it reduces the number of vehicle collisions and expenses related to them. In addition, gamification rewards will make the drivers feel recognized and valued by the company. It will even help to increase the loyalty drivers have towards the company.

Provides Instant Feedback

Providing fleet drivers with instant feedback in gamification is crucial as it enables them to know when they are going off-route. In addition, gamification requires showing the drivers their progress and the number of tasks they must complete. By providing them with real-time data, they can map out the method for accomplishing their goals. Doing so will make them feel empowered and confident.

A feeling of job satisfaction arises when they are given instant feedback on their accomplishments. Naturally, this will add to their productivity level as well.

Ensures Compliance

Gamification is a tool fleet companies can use to ensure that the drivers comply with the drafted policies, rules, and safety instructions. Since it provides drivers’ engagement, it makes it easy to follow and abide by the rules as they want to win. 

Additionally, gamification can get addictive because of the rush it gives drivers when they win rewards. Because of this, they are more likely to follow guidelines and healthy driving practices organically. This driver behavior will help fleet companies reap long term benefits.

Can Make Training Fun

For new fleet drivers, gamification will be an efficient method to help them become better drivers because of the intrigue it creates. Furthermore, training done through gamification will be more effective and enjoyable for drivers. Several companies, like Deloitte and Walmart, use gamification principles to ensure employees complete their training.

How To Implement Gamification Into Your Fleet Business

This all sounds great in theory, but how do you bring it into action? 

To help you implement gamification efficiently, you must first adopt a telematic solution. This software will not only help you provide real time data but will also achieve efficacy. Furthermore, through reliant software, you get access to many other features and solutions that helps to achieve the desired results.

• The first step is to adopt a tracking system. For that, fleet management software is ideal as it will help you track the location of your drivers and vehicles. In addition, solutions like route management, video telematics, and driver behavior monitoring are necessary as they provide you with visually and textually real-time data.
• The second step would be to have an analytical dashboard that updates with real-time information is crucial. Managers can view which driver is leading and which ones are non-compliant. The leaderboard provides data like top five performers, driver score, etc. In addition, this data gets saved for six months, making it convenient for managers to compare.
• The third step is to establish rules, rewards, routes to be undertaken, and goals to complete. For example, goals could be minimizing fuel consumption, eliminating events like harsh cornering and acceleration, and timely delivery of consignments. In such cases, solutions like driver behavior monitoring, fuel monitoring, and asset tracking become useful as sensor data gets directly transmitted.
• The fourth step includes recognizing and rewarding the drivers who can meet their goals and complete their tasks while following the KPIs. The rewards can include time off, bonuses, gift cards, some privileges, or merchandise.
• The fifth step is when managers distinguish bad drivers from good ones. Through automated reports, managers have data on the driving performance of each driver. This makes it easy for them to provide drivers with feedback and improvement tips through the driver app.
• And in the final step, you can continuously improve the gamification program with the help of the accumulated data. Also, consult the drivers to make adjustments to the program. Gamification is a long-term goal and not a quick fix.

Gamification And The Future of Fleet Management

Already many companies have started seeing the positive results gamification can yield. For example, EnviroVent’s driver performance report shows a 10% drop in fuel consumption and annual savings of £36,000, eliciting employee competition. 

Recently, road transport specialist Pentalver benefitted £50,000 by giving drivers quarterly bonuses if they hit performance targets during gamification. Even Australian company Traffex slashed its fuel bills by more than 50% due to gamification. Another Aussie company Lefand was able to recognize issues with company drivers and provide the necessary training.

This is proof that gamification within fleet operations is a massive success. Not only this, but it also positively affects the environment. Earlier, 30% of carbon emissions came from vehicles, but due to gamification, companies can reduce this impact. Following the rules, drivers restrict themselves from harsh acceleration, which consumes less fuel and reduces pollution.

Implement Gamification with TrackoBit

Why not spice up your fleet trips with the right amount of gamification? The best part is that it is a win-win situation for all. Companies enjoy safer driver performance and reduced costs of trips, while the drivers enjoy incentives and recognition for completing their tasks while adhering to the rules.

And by combining it with telematic software, your fleet company can further simplify and increase the efficiency of gamification multi-folds. 

TrackoBit is one such fleet management software that offers to rectify driver behavior through its monitoring solutions. Its route-optimizing solution is truly one of a kind, making it a leading GPS tracking software in the market.

Click here to gamify!!