Could Fleet Tracking Benefit Your Business?

By Guest Author | logistics | January 27, 2021

Fleet tracking offers a whole range of benefits to businesses in a range of different industries. IF you manage a fleet of commercial vehicles, fleet tracking has great potential: it can revolutionize your operations and improve everything from efficiency to safety. To understand just how valuable it can be to utilize fleet tracking properly, you need to learn a little more about it:

What is Fleet Tracking?

Fleet tracking is a way of managing a fleet (a collection of cars, trucks, or other transportable equipment), using GPS tracking to monitor the vehicles in the fleet, as well as assets, workers, and equipment. It is sometimes called vehicle tracking and sometimes called AVL.

How Can Fleet Tracking Benefit Your Business?

Fleet tracking is becoming increasingly common across many different types of companies today. Tracking can be hugely beneficial to any company that owns or even manages a fleet of vehicles – it isn’t just limited to delivery companies; even startups like Uber would not be able to function without great fleet tracking. Although it is common across industries, there are certain companies that benefit most commonly from fleet tracking – those companies that have a transportation-based business model. They might be companies that provide transportation services or companies like manufacturers, who depend on materials being delivered from different locations regularly. Fleet tracking becomes essential to those companies – providing several key benefits:

Government Compliance

Having a fleet tracking system in place means that companies will be effectively keeping in line with the strict government compliance requirements. The government requires that shipping companies keep certain records, especially the US Department of Transportation or the DOT. There are software systems relating to fleet tracking that can track areas where you might not be complying with DOT guidelines. These might include inspections (either pre-trip or post-trip), log maintenance and repair work, tracking hours driven, fuel tax calculations. These records also improve general traceability, which helps the whole supply chain function healthily.

Improve Efficiency

The supply chain is possibly one of the most competitive parts of business. Every business in the supply chain is looking to cut inefficiency and increase profit while maintaining high service quality. Implementing a fleet tracking system allows you to do just that – manage your fleet more effectively while using innovative technologies like in-vehicle cameras, engine temperature sensors, and tire pressure sensors, which can help to increase profit by ensuring safety and reducing lost profits from accidents. These systems can also provide coaching to drivers by collecting a wealth of data about how a driver drives. It can make recommendations after analyzing driving habits on ways to improve driving, whether that’s reducing vehicle idling or finding better routes.

Reduce Your Environmental Impact

The data that is collected by these fleet tracking telematics software solutions can also be used to determine where you need to improve in terms of truck efficiency. This not only saves you money by burning less gas, but it helps to cut your impact on the environment. Whether it’s through reducing the fuel you consume or reducing the emissions you produce via routine maintenance. 

Photo by Ivan Bandura on Unsplash