Rising petrol costs are negatively impacting people and companies world-wide. With people needing to be smarter about their transportation routes, vehicle efficiency, and driving behaviour to get the most out of their fuel. This is no different to the responsibilities of a fleet manager.
A fleet manager needs to find innovative ways to minimise the costs associated with running a fleet. One way to tackle the potential burden of excessive fuel costs can be made easier by integrating sophisticated fuel management systems into fleet operations. They can help companies maximise productivity and lower costs by identifying inefficiencies in their fuel usage.
What is a Fuel Management System?
A fully integrated fuel management system combines modern fuel monitoring technology with GPS technology and state-of-the-art data management tools to help you identify your fleets’ current fuel usage.
Let us take a closer look at how these systems work together to give you comprehensive reports:
- Fuel monitoring technology: By installing on-board sensors directly into the fuel tank, you can easily monitor the vehicles’ fuel levels in real-time. Combine this with GPS tracking technology, you can gain further insights into the fuel efficiency of your vehicle by comparing reports with previous trips taken.
- Data management: Pairing your fuel monitoring system with data management technology can help you collect and analyse real-time data relating to your fuel tanks’ fuel levels. This data will give you actionable insights into your fleet’s fuel usage and help you optimise fuel usage and improve fleet efficiency.
- Additional reporting technology: Your fuel management system can be connected to additional tracking and monitoring systems to further optimise your fleets’ efficiency by providing you with real-time vehicle location, vehicle or tank maintenance records, and pre-set maintenance alerts, driver behaviour reports e.g., hard braking, quick acceleration etc.
These reports can give you a clearer view of all factors that influence fuel consumption, which in turn allows you to improve driver training, optimise fuel usage, increase productivity, discourage unlawful behaviour, and watch your profits grow.
5 Ways Fuel Management Systems Benefit Vehicle Fleets
Fuel management systems allow fleet managers to easily monitor and manage fuel consumption for their fuel tanks, whether static tanks or mobile tanks. It helps them reduce and optimise fuel-related expenses and improve overall fleet performance.
Here are five ways fuel management systems help drive businesses to improve their operations and efficiency and lower their costs.
Better Fuel Economy
Lowering the cost of fuel is best performed by improving the way that fuel is used. There are many ways a fuel management system can facilitate improved fuel economy for vehicle fleets, for example:
- Monitoring real-time events and tracking vehicle performance provides invaluable information to fleet managers who are able to promote good driving habits across their fleet.
- Fuel management systems help identify speeding, harsh braking events, abnormal routes, and excessive idling.
- Fleet managers are able to measure changes over time and incentivise good fuel-conservation practices, while identifying bad driving behaviour and recognising drivers who need additional training.
Timely vehicle maintenance and care
A vehicle running at optimal performance will have a lower fuel consumption rate than one performing poorly. Fuel management systems can run real-time diagnostics on the overall health and performance of a vehicle’s engine and take the guesswork out of vehicle maintenance. Managers can become more proactive in the upkeep of their fleets while avoiding unexpected expenses and repairs.
Fewer losses due to theft and waste
Unnecessary expenses can take unexpected forms, for example, a fuel tank with a crack in it thereby loosing fuel throughout the day, even when not in use, and fuel theft. Fuel theft can be a major contributor towards inflated fuel costs within any fleet and may be the result of internal or external factors.
A fuel management system can provide a fleet manager with real-time reports, which they can compare with results from previous trips to identify possible fuel loss. Furthermore, a fleet manager can set alerts for unscheduled fuels stops, fuel dispensed, fuel added, and rapid fuel level drops etc.
These reports can help with fleet managers with optimised vehicle maintenance schedules and discourage would-be fuel thieves from targeting your fleet.
Sustainability and the environment
With changes in legislation to reduce CO2 emissions by 2030 in certain industries, fleet managers need to look at more sustainable ways of running their fleet. A fuel management system can help fleet managers establish a more efficient way to manage their fuel consumption, which in turn will help lower their impact on the environment.
Customers care about the environmental impact of the goods and services they consume, and by reducing your carbon footprint can improve customer retention. Being environmentally conscious will show employees and customers your investment in the future of your community.
The fact is that sustainability is a cost-related concern but, mostly, an ethical one. Digitising the processes by which fleets are run and maintained as well as transitioning to electric-powered vehicles are great ways to save the environment and avoid volatile petrol prices, too.
Making fuel tax reporting simpler
Significant expenditure on petrol means that fuel levies and tax reports can require serious attention. Fortunately, fuel management systems make it much easier to regulate and monitor the petrol a fleet uses over the course of a fiscal year.
Filing returns requires extensive information about when and how far vehicles in a fleet have travelled that year. Keeping track of all this information is difficult but, by automating the fuel management process, fleet managers are now able to streamline the reporting of fuel usage for tax purposes.
Summary
Fuel management systems give fleets, around the world, a chance to improve their efficiency and cut back on costs. Fleet managers using a fuel management system can spend more time focusing on their vehicles, business operations, and driver training rather than their expenses, to ensure optimal performance.
With actionable information provided by real-time data, managers can reduce costs, save time, improve driving behaviour, streamline tax reporting, and reduce their carbon footprint.
