If you operate a fleet of vehicles within your business, whether it’s as for deliveries, construction or general transport purposes (read: taxis), then you know how important it is to keep track of your drivers. Vehicle tracking software is the next step to bettering your business, making tracking your fleet easier, and creating big savings for your business.
Vehicle tracking is a savings tool for small businesses too
You’ve likely heard of methods of vehicle tracking for fleets of cars, vans and HGVs, those typically used by big businesses. But vehicle tracking isn’t just useful for established companies with hundreds of vehicles.
In fact, the inverse is often true—it’s the smaller businesses with fewer fleet management resources that can benefit most from vehicle tracking technologies that do much of the leg work.
Many services provide vehicle tracking software, also known as telematics, and this software will cost upfront. But it quickly pays for itself in more ways than one.
What valuable insights does vehicle tracking record?
Vehicle tracking involves installing a remote GPS tracking device within a vehicle that gathers information about its location and transmits that data to a control centre in real time. An analyst, whether it be a business owner or fleet co-ordinator, can then monitor and interpret that data to determine the exact location of a vehicle at any given time.
Movolytics are a leading provider of vehicle tracking and telematics software to large and small businesses. A key feature of their vehicle tracking software uses geofencing, which triggers automated alerts when drivers get close to specific zones, such as depots, interchanges or specified destinations of any type. Through their software, this is processed into accessible graphics within their system, ideal for reporting and monitoring.
Being able to glance at vehicle tracking software to see where all your drivers are, at any time, enables fleet managers to get an accurate picture of driver progress without having to check in with them individually or wait until the end of shift to check the driver’s logs.
If you can track when a driver is done, or near the end of your route, you can more accurately respond to requests for new jobs. If you carry out more jobs, you make more money, and the value of the vehicle tracking software to your business increases without the cost going up. Until you need to add more vehicles but then the cycle continues.
Improve driver behaviour to make fuel (cost) savings
If driving is only a supplementary requirement of your employees (such as if you run a handyman service), your drivers are likely to be less aware of their driving habits. Unlike drivers with specialist training, they may not be familiar with the best practices for driving efficiently. Improvements that business owners can implement through vehicle tracking are therefore likely to have a significant, positive impact on changing that driver’s behaviour.
Research has shown that when drivers know they are being monitored, they become more self-conscious and make more cautious decisions as a result. In the driving seat, this translates to a lower risk of collisions and reduces bad habits such as late braking or short changing gears that can cause serious harm to both the vehicle, driver and members of the public.
An employee’s driving history and behaviours are good indicators of future risk of accidents, and when vehicle monitoring makes this information available to fleet managers, it gives them an opportunity to work with drivers to improve those behaviours. Fewer accidents and safer drivers will also cost your business less.
Fortunately for business owners, many insurance providers even offer a discount to fleet owners who install vehicle tracking software. The discount on premiums more often than not makes up for the costs incurred to install the system. Now that’s certainly an incentive to invest in vehicle tracking for a business of any size!
Vehicle tracking helps you use nearby drivers for local jobs
Another common misconception is that vehicle tracking is only required for businesses that deal exclusively in long-haul deliveries. Distance is an important factor in driver performance, but many businesses may have drivers working both locally and further afield. Vehicle tracking can benefit both of these.
For example, with long roads on distance deliveries, you may want to focus on drivers taking enough breaks, while monitoring their speed. With local transports, your business may want to focus on efficiency of the delivery to maximise of the number of jobs that can be achieved per day, and this can include watching out for hard braking and finding less congested routes.
GPS will allow you to keep customers informed
GPS vehicle tracking helps businesses make more accurate predictions of arrival times for customers, whether on a call-out or making a delivery. This makes it easier for drivers to meet their expectations, which makes for great customer service. Better service means more jobs and increased profits.
With vehicle tracking software, fleet managers can apply smart filtering tools to identify available drivers nearest the relevant address, which is particularly useful with time sensitive jobs, last minute calls, or in the case of a driving being taken ill.
This local tracking in turn improves fuel efficiency as it saves drivers making long journeys to reach a destination that might be better served by a closer member of the fleet. All in all, vehicle tracking can only benefit your business, while saving you money.