Fleet Fuel Management Best Practices

Fleet fuel management is one of the essential aspects of running a profitable fleet business. Fuel is the second-largest expenditure when it comes to fleet-operating systems. Well, if you are new to the fleet industry then this blog gives you a glimpse of the best practices on fleet management and how serious the problem of fuel expense could become if unchecked.

Saving fuel is the main challenge that fleet managers face every day. Insufficient fuel consumption impacts the competitiveness & productivity of the business would have a negative impact on the bottom line. That’s why monitoring fuel is important for commercial vehicle rental companies. 

If you are running a fleet, you might know that fuel expenses totally affect the fleet operating budget. Some fleet owners or fleet managers worry about how to handle their fuel management operation without loss.

It is true that you will never be able to change or predict the cost per gallon. Because crude oil prices are often changing & fleet companies would have certain operational minimums. To ace this aspect, you can use the fleet management system that leverages technology to provide valuable insight into your fuel spending. 

A fleet management solution includes tracking and monitoring fuel consumption and that helps promote more efficient driving.

Problems that fuel management systems solve- 

• Monitor fuel costs of commercial vehicles 
• Incorporate good driving habits 
• Capture & prevent fuel theft and leakage 
• Calculate & report fuel taxes

Why is fuel fleet management system important? 

Fuel management involves monitoring, controlling, maintenance, over the storage & consumption of fuel. You should understand that effective fuel fleet management ensures the optimal utilization of resources. Thus, it allows you to reduce costs to a larger extent. Fuel monitoring systems are developed to cater to various needs of transportation models. 

The best way to manage your fleet fuel costs is to create a proper fuel fleet management system. You can use fleet management software which is one of the best fleet management solutions to have a fuel program. 

By using software, you can easily manage your commercial vehicles of fleet which gives clear, accurate, & actionable statistics. This actually helps for tracking mileage and average speed that helps to inform which drivers, vehicles, and routes are most fuel-demanding. 

Best Practices on Fleet Fuel Management 

According to the fleet survey report, 86% of fleets are using telematic technology for huge savings on fuel. You won’t believe it but it's true that nearly 55% of commercial vehicle companies have reduced their fuel costs using telematics-based fuel management software. 

Telematics technology provides you with a broad range of up-to-date information regarding your commercial fleet vehicles. The Telematics system uses built-in-GPS technology, you can easily track your vehicle speed & location. When telematics is connected directly to the engine control module, you can determine the distances, how far the fleet drivers have traveled, how drivers operate fleet vehicles and compute fuel consumption.

Telematics is a reliable fleet fuel monitoring system reporting features that provide visibility about your fleet’s fuel consumption.   

• It reveals your fleet driver’s habits, commercial vehicle conditions, & other factors that lead to fuel waste.   
• It can collect real-time GPS coordinates, appropriate odometer readings, and other data. 

These reports give you a complete insight which helps to find the solution to the problem. Even this software could present a ranking of driver’s scorecards which is most and least fuel-efficient drivers.  

 Route Optimization 

When your fleet of commercial vehicles is on the move, your driver can experience traffic or longer routes and that results from excessive fuel consumption. In this case, integrating Google’s direction API helps you to get rid of these setbacks. Whereas, this service provides you the route optimization effectively with parameters such as Distances, Traffic, Number of turns, Vehicle Conditions, etc.

Moreover, leveraging telematics or GPS tracking helps you to find the shortest routes for drivers to avoid several stops or traffic jams.

Driver Training and Vehicle Maintenance

Driver Training: Train your fleet drivers about fuel efficiency & eco-driving techniques – removing excess vehicle weight, anticipating traffic flow, and more. This helps to manage fleet consumption and all such things related to fuel.

Schedule vehicle maintenance: If you are looking to save money on fuel, regular vehicle maintenance is important. Vehicle maintenance could improve your fleet fuel economy which makes your vehicle run at the best possible condition.

Track Driver Habits

Great fleets & happy clients depend on good drivers. Fleet productivity decreases due to fleet vehicle stopping, speeding, hard acceleration or breaking, & unplanned detours cause fuel inefficiency. If you have any goal of improving your driver behavior, then track your driver’s habits. When you use reliable technology, you can monitor your driver’s behavior.

Use Driver Fuel Cards

When you monitor the fuel purchases, you will have control over the driver’s fuel card around things like:   

• Which stations do fleet drivers visit?   
• How often does the driver fuel up the vehicle?   
• How much fuel is pumped?   
• At what times can fuel be purchased? 

Preventing Fuel Theft

Fuel theft is one of the common problems rampant across the transportation sector. According to statistics reports, 65% of commercial vehicle companies are being exposed to fraudulent activities like sharing fuel cards between drivers or drivers using fuel cards for their purchases. Using a telematics fuel monitoring system, you can easily identify when and where fuel theft occurs. Moreover, with access to information, you can immediately take precautions to prevent fuel theft from happening again.

Different Fuel Monitoring Systems

Card-based fuel Monitoring  

In this fuel monitoring system, the fleet driver will have a Fueling credit card & a Debit pin. The driver can use the respective card while fueling the vehicle. Thereby, reports can be generated periodically in terms of tracking fuel consumption. Moreover, the data can be downloaded & stored, if necessary.   

On-site fuel monitoring

It is possible to track your commercial fleet vehicle when the bulk fuel tanks or fleet refueling services go for on-site fuel monitoring.

Mobile fuel Monitoring

You have the option of mobile fuel monitoring technology when your fleet of tankers supplies fuel to other stations. This uses Radio frequency identification (RFI) technology to identify the specific vehicle & provide the details of the transaction.

Total fuel Monitoring

Complete fuel monitoring provides both on-site and card-based fuel monitoring systems. This makes you enhance your fleet management & reduces the chance of misinformation.

Conclusion:

Fuel management could be tedious and intricate when you are using manual methods for tracking your fuel consumption.

Transform your business and equip yourself with modern fleet management solutions. New technologies help to boost your fleet vehicles' fuel efficiency. 

Fleet fuel management helps you to maintain a well-working fleet and make it worth the investment. By prioritizing the fuel management system, you will ensure that each fleet vehicle performs at its best. This helps to run a successful business and rake in more profits.

At Fraikin, we designed our large fleet vehicles and small fleet vehicles to monitor fleet compliance & maintenance while reducing fuel costs.