How to Reduce Idle Time for Vehicle Fleets
Idling is undoubtedly one of the most, if
not the most, financially straining challenges that fleet owners and managers
face every day. Commercial vehicles are still busy through the day and have
exhausting schedules along their path of boarding, unloading, paperwork
procedures and frequent visits. Fleet vehicles must be idle to conduct any of
the activities that are required and included in the operational budget, but
the needless and wasteful idling induced by the drivers and inadequate route
maintenance will substantially push up the running costs.
Idling is a completely avoidable issue from
a business management perspective, but in practice it is almost impossible to
force hundreds of drivers to stick to their designated routes and stop just for
rest purposes. Breakdowns and unplanned repairs are appropriate excuses for a
car to stay idle while the engine is off because if the motor is working and a
car becomes inactive for extended periods of time it can create a variety of
long-term issues in the fleet.
Fortunately, the advent of GPS tracking devices based
fleet management systems for company owners and field managers provide them
with a fighting chance to recognize and eradicate all sources of idling. An achievable goal is to reduce idle time by fleet vehicles, but companies need
the right management tools to notify field managers of idling vehicles and make
behavioral adjustments through training.
Imagine if you can reduce the fuel costs of
your fleet by up to 30 percent while making your vehicles healthier. Fleet
management systems are tailor-made solutions for dealing with the challenges of
a logistics operation and idling is no exception. There are some methods that
administrators can use to get drivers to abide by client rules to avoid idling
outside of business purposes. Whatever the size of your business, major issues
like idling pose a threat to a company's financial stability and cause you to
exceed your designated annual budget.
While this varies depending on the type of vehicle, business managers can save thousands of pounds per vehicle every year
by simply eliminating idling by effectively using the fleet management tools.
It's an ambitious assertion and business owners may question if an
sophisticated software-supported GPS monitoring device would meet any of those
suggested goals. Well, let's take a closer look at the idling issue and how
fleet management systems help businesses solve the problems of a logistics
company with unruly drivers and unexpected problems that await vehicles on the
roads.
How to Abolish Idling:
Any organization that incorporates
GPS-based fleet management systems into its network would definitely find a
success story. The small investment companies have to make spades to pay for
these sophisticated systems. Commercial cars have various opportunities to
waste time idling, such as waiting for travelers, halting at border crossings,
driving in drive-through lanes, or waiting for loading and unloading freight.
Most of these actions can be easily tracked as they form a pattern over time
and can be detected by analyzing data from the history of the route.