How Telematics Systems Help Fleets Cut Fuel Costs

Quick Summary: Telematics tools help fleets cut fuel costs by identifying metrics like poor driver habits, excessive idling, equipment inefficiencies, poor load management, and non-optimized routes. Telematics tools help fleets track each of these areas to ensure new approaches and processes are working to improve fuel usage.

How Do Fuel Costs Impact Fleet Budgets?

Fuel represents approximately 60% of a fleet’s total operating costs, so cutting waste is key in optimizing budgets and improving profits. By identifying metrics associated with fuel usage, fleets can get a better picture of how efficiently their fleet is or is not utilizing fuel, create new processes and procedures, then track those metrics over time to ensure improvements are occurring. 

What Affects Fuel Efficiency for Commercial Trucks?

Several aspects of fleet operations can impact fuel usage for a commercial fleet, including:

• Driver Habits: Aggressive driving, speeding, hard breaks, and over problematic driver habits reduce fuel efficiency for each individual truck. For a fleet with numerous trucks, these small inefficiencies compound into substantial fuel wastage. Interestingly, many driver habits associated with poor fuel usage are also connected with an increased likelihood of accidents.
• Excessive Idling: According to the U.S. Department of Energy, a typical long-haul truck idles about 1,800 hours per year, using approximately 1,500 gallons of diesel. By increasing route awareness for conditions like construction or traffic delays, as well as implementing new truck technologies that reduce the need for idling during mandated rest breaks, fleets can reduce the amount of fuel wasted from idling.
• Equipment Inefficiencies: Poorly maintained equipment can actually reduce fuel efficiency for commercial trucks. For example, according to the EPA, tires under-inflated by 20% use 10% more fuel, due to requiring more energy to stop. Other pieces of equipment that are not well-maintained can cause the truck to perform at suboptimal levels — including issues with the ignition, fuel delivery, sensors, and engine/transmission — making the engine work harder and therefore use more fuel.
• Load Management: Ensuring a truck’s freight is the proper weight and well-distributed is important in optimizing fuel efficiency. Unbalanced loads can lead to instability and increased drag, causing the engine to work harder and use more fuel. Ensuring each load is the proper weight also impacts a truck’s fuel usage, as every extra 110 lbs increases fuel consumption by approximately 2%. Frequent stops and starts increase the load's weight, so route planning is tied to the impact of freight weight on fuel efficiency.
• Optimized Routes: Route planning can directly impact a fleet’s fuel usage in numerous ways. Planning a route that avoids stop-and-go traffic and ongoing construction helps reduce idle time and can increase fuel efficiency by small increments that add up to big improvements over time. Avoiding areas with many stop lights can also help, as the starting and stopping is what requires more power from (and fuel to) the engine. Additionally, routing trucks closer to the lowest-priced fuel stops helps reduce fuel purchase costs.

5 Ways Telematics Help Monitor Fuel Efficiency Factors

The top benefit telematics tools offer fleets for fuel efficiency is the ability to monitor in real time — and track over time—trends in fuel-efficiency factors. For example:

1. Reviewing which drivers are engaging in driver habits associated with poor fuel usage, such as speeding or hard braking, and using that opportunity to coach them toward more preferred driving habits.
2. Optimizing route planning tools to reduce idle time, choose the routes easiest on the trucks and drivers, and ensure access to the best fuel prices along the route.
3. Ensuring loads are properly loaded and secure, and remain so during transit, to reduce instability and drag, both of which decrease fuel efficiency. 
4. Engaging in preventative maintenance on vehicles and equipment, as well as promptly responding to any alerts, so that trucks are in top shape for the best possible fuel efficiency.
5. Set benchmark metrics for fuel efficiency and track them in real time and at regular intervals to ensure improvements are realized. Establish and evolve best practices as needed. 

Improving insight into and access to fleet data is an effective way to reduce fuel usage, which accounts for a significant portion of a fleet’s budget. Small improvements across several trucks over multiple months can soon make a big difference on a fleet’s bottom line.

Related Reading: How Tenstreet Helps Fleets Track Driver Habits for Improved Safety, Efficiency

How Platform Science Fleet Management Tools Support Fuel Efficiency and More

As a leading telematics and fleet management software provider, Platform Science offers the tools and technologies to realize efficiency gains across your fleet. Leveraging a deep understanding of a driver’s daily workflow and pain points, our tools reduce busywork and workarounds by streamlining required tasks and ensuring integration between all needed tools. This improves driver job satisfaction and supports retention, while simultaneously improving data quality and promoting safety and compliance. 

Additionally, Platform Science offers an extensive add-on library of pre-vetted apps that allow fleets to fully customize their tech stack based on their goals, needs, and challenges. Just like adding apps to your smart phone, the Virtual Vehicle Marketplace allows fleets to beef up their systems in areas like load management, fuel efficiency, driver training, and much more.

Related Reading: Meet the Virtual Vehicle Marketplace: How to Power Up Your Fleet's Operations

Ready to start the conversation on how telematics can improve your fleet’s efficiency? Contact us to schedule a demo.