One of the many ways in which you can make sure that your GPS system pays for itself is as a basis for making operational changes which will reduce your fuel consumption.

Research published by TERNZ and case studies such as Alexander Petroleum (who celebrated an 18% reduction in fuel consumption earlier this year) confirm that targeting driver behaviour and operational planning issues which GPS can highlight, can make a significant difference to the fuel bill. Imagine only paying 11, or even 10, of the 12 fuel bills that you currently receive per year?

One of the services which CCS Logistics provides is helping transport companies to get more out of their GPS systems, and a key opportunity is in fuel savings. As one of my customers said to me; “we’ve spent the same money on technology recently as we would on a new truck – its time to get the same returns from these systems as we expect from the trucks”

Fuel Saving – how?

As with all projects, you need a consistent approach. Know what you are expecting to see from your operation and compare that to what you are actually seeing. It is quite normal to look at your reports in detail for the first time and to have a nasty surprise about down time, speeding, or other events – you are not alone!

The difference between getting results and getting a reaction when you start to address these behaviours is in the approach that you take. It doesn’t have to take much time to make a difference but by being methodical and consistent it makes the time that you do spend on it worthwhile.

When we work with our clients we take one of two approaches, depending on the size of the fleet;

  1. If you only speak to each driver once, here’s what to address to make the biggest difference”
  2. If you only do 3 things this month, to improve fleet fuel performance, do this…”

A Focus on Fuel Efficiency leads to a Focus on Idle Time

One of the key elements which can easily be targeted is the time spent idling – when the engine is running but the truck is parked up. Whilst at the outset, the figures can be pretty startling, we normally see a significant improvement within three to four months. For each of the fleets on our fuel efficiency programme, we have found up to 5% of the fleet do not make the same scale of improvement as the other trucks.

This is due to one of three reasons;

  • Driver attitude
  • Profile of work
  • Incorrect data

Don’t shoot the driver – you have a 66% chance of being in the wrong!

What kind of work does the truck do? A swinglift truck needs the engine running whilst he is loading and unloading containers so is bound to have a higher idle time than the rest of the fleet – the profile of his work means no matter how much you talk to him about idling, his truck will always show a lot more idle than straightforward delivery trucks.

It is quite possible that when your GPS was installed, a few leading questions were not asked; Does the truck have an idle timer, a turbo timer, on board scales or self levelling suspension? Is it likely that the driver will spend time with the electrics of the truck live for any reason when the engine is not running – listening to music radio, monitoring the RT or CB? The standard install for GPS takes the electrics being live as the trigger to report that the engine as running. If the truck has any of the characteristics listed above, this could be seriously misleading. We identified one linehaul vehicle which reported the equivalent of 4 days of solid idling – yes 96 hours – in one month. The manager was confused by this as the driver of that vehicle was really enthusiastic about the project and was receptive to all of the feedback he had been given. The truck was suffering from a wrong assumption made at installation time, and nothing the driver changed in his day could fix that up – it needed a technical fix.

Many operators have had GPS in their fleet for over 2 years before we help them analyse their stats and start spotting the anomalies so they can start delivering lasting benefits. Taking the time to work out what is important to you, and getting benchmarks in place will set you up. Giving the reports a reality check before you speak to the drivers will earn you their respect in stead of going in all guns blazing and making it the driver’s problem.

The same rules apply with the use of this system as anything else – GPS is an extra tool not the only tool. Check what you see against common sense before acting – ignorance is no defence when you are managing a fleet.