Fleet managers face a stressful job, monitoring the daily operations. They oversee general performance and maintenance across the fleet to get the most out of the business and help it run as smoothly as possible. This involves a lot of tasks, including asset utilization, route planning, driver management, and vehicle maintenance. With the enormous tasks involved, it’s no surprise that technology has come to the rescue and offers software that could make the job easier and more efficient.
Vehicle Acquisition
All fleet managers need to know what vehicles they need and how they are going to fund them. Although sourcing cheap trucks can seem like a viable option in the short term, the long-term maintenance costs would be too high. Therefore, it is better to buy new:
- Through heavy vehicle loans or truck loans – borrowing money from the bank and paying them back
- Or heavy vehicle finance/truck finance from a dealer – spread the cost of the vehicle through payment plans with the dealership.
Other considerations for vehicle acquisition include class eligibility and vehicle lifecycles.
Helpful Tech – Fleetio supports fleet managers with vehicle lifecycle management by removing the guesswork.
GPS Tracking
Tracking a fleet has many benefits. For example, you can monitor drivers to make sure correct routes are being followed and verify information, like whether a gas station has been visited. Managers can stay in the know about drivers who aren’t being safe on the road – by speeding, for example.
Helpful Tech –Trak ’N Go is based in Australia and can help reduce your insurance costs.
Electronic Logging Compliance
The Hours of Service (HOS) guidelines require compliance from all truck drivers and help monitor things like rest breaks and driving limits – the idea is to keep the roads safe and prevent crashes. This might have been a harder job in the past but is made quite easy with some of the top ELDs. Using an ELD makes it harder for drivers to lie about rest stops in an attempt to make more money.
Keeping Drivers Safe
Despite being miles away from their fleet, managers are responsible for keeping their drivers safe. This might seem impossible, but with the help of dashcams, fleetmanagers can get real-time insight into an otherwise remote vehicle. Being able to monitor the fleet’s driving ability is invaluable for creating training material to promote even safer roads.
Number Crunching
Analyzing all outgoing costs and trying to minimize them falls on the shoulders of the fleet manager, saving money helps increase company productivity. With the number of facts and figures involved, it can be an overwhelming task on top of everything else they need to do. Luckily, there are plenty of fleet management programs that makethese jobs feel more manageable.
Hopefully, you’ve got a tip of the iceberg understanding of what fleet management involves and know where you can find some handy tools to make life easier. Whether you oversee a fleet of busses or logistical trucks, you need to know what’s happening whilst your assets are out on the road.