Fleet management from the 21st Century

Fleet management for the 21st Century

Imagine reducing your vehicle fleet’s fuel costs and managing it more efficiently – all at no real cost to your organization. Add to that the ability to get more up time from your team, and also to improve your maintenance scheduling. It sounds like a tall order, but it’s not just wishful thinking. All these things can happen if your dispatchers switch to a GPS Fleet Management System.

Most of us are familiar with GPS navigation systems in new vehicles. They’re powerful tools that use satellites to tell drivers where they are, and how to get where they are going. However, imagine if this technology was adapted and combined with an advanced software application. The result could allow fleet managers to track their vehicles on-line and see where they are and what they are doing at any given moment.

Such simple-to-use systems already exist and are available for fleets. One is even made in British Columbia by a company called Neroglobal Tracking. Their web-based tracking system can give operations managers and dispatchers realtime, useable information about every vehicle in their fleet.

Knowledge is power – and savings

Using a GPS Tracking system, you can track up to 100 vehicles in your fleet from your computer screen. The software can let you see where your vehicles are, on a map, or on Google Earth photos. It will tell you how long they’ve been where they are, and where they are headed. It will even tell you how fast they are traveling. That gives your fleet managers the knowledge and power to get more work done in a day. Dispatchers can plan routes more efficiently. They can see how long each driver is spending at a job. And, because the GPS system automatically tracks mileage, they’ll even be told when a vehicle is due up for maintenance. So they can take better care of company assets.

As a number of Neroglobal customers will attest, that all translates into real savings. Joel Carter, the operations manager at Roto Router in Vancouver says, “We cut our gas bills

on trucks with a GPS Tracking System by 30%. Our fuel savings are pretty much paying for the cost of installing the system.” When you add in the value of a more efficient workforce and reduced wear and tear on the vehicles, it becomes a highly profitable decision. That’s probably why Carter says his superiors at Roto Router are pushing him to install GPS Tracking on every vehicle in their fleet.

Proving itself in 47school district fleets

GPS Tracking is starting to prove its worth in BC’s school districts, too. School District 23 in Kelowna has been the first to install it on their fleet of over 50 units. As Director of Operations Alan Cumbers says, “It’s doing everything it was advertised to do. It’s simple to use and requires a low amount of training.”

The system has only been installed at S.D. 23 for a few months now. Nevertheless, Operations Manager Grant Davidson agrees with his boss. “Our GPS Tracking System is very simple to use and understand.” He adds, “We know what our staff are doing now, and we can see how much it will do as we become more comfortable with it. There is value here.”

Worried about vehicle security?

There’s another strong benefit that comes with installing a GPS Tracking System. It gives you better security for your vehicles. Having GPS tracking is both a theft deterrent and a way to put an instant end to unauthorized use of vehicles. Staff simply will no longer take vehicles when they are not supposed to, or take them where they are not supposed to. They know that every vehicle’s movement will be tracked and recorded on dispatcher’s computers. And, if a vehicle is stolen, it becomes not unlike the “bait cars” used in British Columbia to catch car thieves. The vehicle’s owner can be notified by text message if a vehicle is moving when it shouldn’t be. They can then contact police and tell them exactly where that vehicle is.

In fact, the security and tracking aspects of the GPS systems are so good, they have been adapted by the University of Toronto Police for a bicycle crime prevention program. Faced with a large number of bike thefts, they installed GPS beacons on “bait” bicycles and tracked them with Neroglobal Tracking software. Peter Franchi, the corporal in charge of the program says, “It was a hit. We had our first arrest in four hours and have had up to four in one day. And we’ve had nothing but positive feedback from the program.” Franchi adds that, “The system was incredibly easy to use. They provided online training and we

installed everything ourselves. It is very user friendly. When a bike was stolen, we’d track it and have printoffs of exact times and routes taken. That’s great 3rd party evidence to present to a judge.”

Management efficiency means fuel efficiency

Houle Electric has over 100 vehicles working in four different locations across the British Columbia. V.P. Denis Carlton has noticed a huge drop in fuel consumption in their fleets since they began using GPS Tracking to manage it. As he says, “That’s a benefit of better tracking and organization on our part.” But it’s also a product of drivers slowing down. The fact is that every one km/h over the speed limit translates into a 1% increase in fuel consumption. And drivers stop speeding when they know their dispatchers will know if they do.

These things all add up to fuel savings, which is becoming a more and more important part of any budget as fuel costs rise. In fact, since Houle installed GPS Tracking, they have increased their fleet size by 20%, but their fuel costs have remained the same.

More work gets done, too

By managing your fleet better, you make sure that more work gets done too. David Katz, President of Neroglobal, explains how this works: “If better vehicle management provides just 30 minutes a day when your people are working instead of driving, that adds up. With 30 trucks, that’s 75 hours more work done a week. That’s like having two extra employees on the job for free. And that doesn’t even include the fuel savings.”

Is free affordable enough?

Katz makes a very strong argument that his Neroglobal Tracking pays for itself, and will actually save most users more money than it costs. His current customers don’t disagree with this. Neroglobal charges one fixed price for the package per vehicle, so there are no sliding costs or fluctuation fees for added services; this removes billing surprises, something no fleet manager wants to contend with.

The bottom line is that, by using GPS vehicle management, you can take fleet management to an entirely new level, very affordably. By constantly knowing exactly where your trucks are and what they are doing, you can manage them far more efficiently than was ever possible before.

If the definition of a good software application is that it empowers the user and makes their job easier, GPS Tracking seems to fit the bill. ❏