What Factors Affect Fleet Fuel Economy?
10 Aug 2022Fuel economy is essential to businesses, regardless of the state of gas prices. But, with gas prices still remaining high, improving fuel economy and saving on fuel costs is even more important. Because fuel is a major cost for any business that relies on fleets, saving even marginal amounts of money on fuel can go a long way. In this article, we’ll go over factors that affect fleet fuel economy and one easy step to improving the fuel economy of your fleet.
Factors that Affect Fuel Economy
Driver behavior
Driver behavior is a major factor in determining fuel economy. Poor driving behavior unnecessarily wastes fuel and costs your business money. Poor driving behavior that wastes fuel includes things like speeding, fast accelerations, and hard braking, all of which burns more gas, while also putting a heavier burden on the engine.
Idling is also a part of driver behavior. Idling keeps the engine running which consumes fuel when the driver isn’t actually driving. For example, when making stops or reaching a job site, drivers may keep the engine running rather than shutting it off. Even doing this for a couple of minutes can add up over time and across your fleet.
Fueleconomy.gov estimates that improving driver behavior could save companies between 10% and 40% on fuel costs.
Route optimization
Getting stuck in traffic or taking a longer route is a waste of both time and fuel, and therefore money. Improving route optimization will greatly cut down on time spent in traffic, and always make sure drivers find the fastest and most fuel-efficient way of reaching their destination.
Maintenance
Driving vehicles that need maintenance can also cut into fuel economy. Properly monitoring and maintaining vehicles is essential to improving fuel efficiency across your fleet, while also preventing breakdowns on the road.
Fuel theft
Fuel theft happens when someone uses a fuel card or charges fuel to the company for unauthorized purchases. This can be when an employee abuses their fuel card privileges and uses them for their personal vehicles or with a lost or stolen fuel card. Identifying fuel theft can go unnoticed and can seriously eat into fuel savings.
How GPS tracking and LiveViewGPS can help
The best and easiest way to tackle these problems and reduce fuel costs is by using GPS tracking like LiveViewGPS. GPS fleet tracking can monitor driver behavior so you can address poor driving behavior and improve the fuel efficiency of drivers company-wide.
GPS fleet tracking is also essential when looking to optimize routes. It can see and adapt to incoming traffic and reroute drivers to faster and less-congested routes. What’s more, GPS fleet tracking can monitor and alert you when certain vehicles are due for check-ins, tire rotation, oil changes, and more. So you don’t have to worry about keeping track of every vehicle yourself. Lastly, GPS fleet tracking can monitor fuel charges and alert you for potential misuse of fuel cards.
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