Fleet efficiency is one of the main goals of every company, whether it is a small fleet or a large one. As your business will increase, your fleet will also increase and along with that the responsibilities of the fleet will also increase.
But, its also true that managing a fleet is not an easy job without a good plan. There are many challenges faced by fleet managers such as expenses to control, vehicles to maintain, and a staff to keep safe and on-task.
Hence, these tasks leaves little room for error, and can give you less productivity. As a fleet managers you need to stay on budget and keep your operation rolling. Therefore, you will need to improve your fleet efficiency to get higher profit. Being a fleet manager you always have to be one step ahead of others.
So, the higher your fleet efficiency, the more profit you will get. However, improving fleet efficiency needs a great steps and tools.
11 Tips to increase your fleet efficiency
By considering all the points such as maintenance issues, managing tire and fuel costs, reducing paperwork , and below all tips you can achieve fleet efficiency smartly.
1. Avoid traffic for better fleet efficiency
The idea of avoiding traffic means eliminating wasted speed. Because, the more traffic your fleet will face, the more your fleet costs. Therefore avoid as much traffic as possible, eliminating these inefficiencies can save both fleet time and expenses. You can easily execute this idea by fully mapping the routes along with the trucking industry. You can take a help from a fleet management software to get the highest fleet efficiency.
2. Replace the large vehicle to small one
Where you have to deliver less goods, use a smaller vehicle instead of sending a larger one. This way you can increase and run the load intelligently without wasting money.
3. Fix the problem as soon as possible
You are a fleet manager and it is your responsibility to ensure that everything is working well or not. Your fleet should run smoothly on the road. All you need to do is preventive maintenance and inspection. Analyze small problems and fix them quickly so that they do not become big problems, which require a lot of money to fix later.
How to analyze the problem to get high fleet efficiency? By vehicle inspection, lubrication, adjustment and simply checking vehicles regularly. You can save a lot of money and time. Always, try to fix the issue as soon as you realize it.
4. Utilize the empty miles
If your truck makes a deliver and come back with 2nd task, this way you can achieve a fleet efficiency in your fleet. Because when your vehicle comes back empty then there aren’t any revenues offsetting the costs.
Hence, arranging a backhaul opportunities or to at least minimize the empty miles by scheduling another pickup/delivery near the original delivery. You will not only save a time and fuel costs but generate more profits with double productivity.
5. Cut down the Wait Times by Good Planning
Do you know why your fleet has so much free time left? This is all due to poor planning. By using the good planning you can eliminate the wait time: map everything, look for ways to extend the flow and eliminate excess moving, this way you can replace the wait time.
6. No More Idle Time
We all know that fuel is the main concern of all fleet companies. You will also know that many times, when the drivers rest on the side of the road, they sometimes leave the engine running? By adjusting the driver’s behavior, a lot of fuel money can be saved in the long run.
7. Give Drivers Real-Time Updates
Try to keep your drivers connected with real time updates. Give them details about everything to keep drivers and trucks on their route. Hence, this way they can cut down the traffic issues and generate more productivity.
8. Keep an Eye on Drivers Activities
By tracking your drivers you will get to know about drivers activities such as their stopping time, idle time, fuel usage and how they’re handling their DOT logs. This can also help you to train drivers appropriately to do what’s best for the fleet.
9. Avoid paperwork
You need to make a habit of maintaining data and record paperless. When you have new technologies to keep your record safe then, why choose paper and increase the work load manually.
Manual work is to much time consuming, and it can give you a error sometimes. We are humans and humans do mistakes, that’s why manually work is not a good way. Fetch the data through fleet management software instead of using the manual report. Accessing the data through a software solution will help improve the efficiency of your operation.
10. Fleet Management Tip by Tip
Nowadays new technologies, fleet owners and managers can easily analyze and know about the whole fleet. Fleet management software will give you all details of fleet, and you can balance the loads, increase the productivity of each driver, increase trade cycles, and more.
11. Maintain Tires
Tires are more than an equipment that’s the reason you should take care of the tires often. After fuel, tires are the second expensive concern for most of the fleet companies. They need proper care to maximize their lifespans.
Always set up regular tire maintenance appointments to rotate the tires and check alignment. Check their pressure, inflation and overall usage can also be checked during these service appointments.
Regular checking can give you an effective return and will allow you to better track the cost of each tire by miles traveled and overall performance.
Improve Fleet Efficiency with Right Fleet Software
Time moves on that’s why it’s our turn to adapt new technology , because they help us to make the fleet more efficient. You can easily improve the efficiency of your fleet with the right fleet management software. The software will manage everything and give you updates in real time.
If you want to get high fleet efficiency in minimal time then contact us.
