Fleet Vehicle Tracking: Examples of Real Life Business Benefits

Most managers will agree that GPS fleet tracking can be an interesting technology, that can provide them with detailed and up-to-date information on their fleet's location at any given time, but many will want to know what actual value it can deliver to thier particular business.

This article takes a look at just three examples of published case studies related to GPS vehicle tracking to illustrate how different types of business that rely of road transport have themselves stated that they gain real business benefit simply through being able to make use of the information arising from GPS vehicle tracking systems in their wider operations.

The first example relates to a typical small business that has around half a dozen engineers who maintain heating systems around the local region.

Even with a relatively small fleet of six vehicles it was clear that improvements in its management could be made. Keeping track of vehicles and allocation of jobs was time consuming relying on regular calls in and out of the office. Emergency call-outs required calls to every engineer to determine the most appropriate response. Scheduling required a significant element of guesswork and the large amounts of paper-based management records were a challenge to maintain.

The adoption of GPS vehicle tracking enabled the business to make immediate savings. Initial savings stemmed from reduced private usage. Now, 18 months on, fuel bills have on average more than halved. In addition, the comprehensive reporting made possible has made compliance with VAT regulations and business planning straightforward. In terms of customer service and efficiency savings, just having reliable information about each engineers location makes emergency call-out management much more effective than previously possible.

A second example relates to a regional distribution business. Again the immediate benefit was found to be a saving in fuel. On fuel savings alone, the return on investment was four-fold - after just three months the measured savings were sufficient to offset the cost of the system for the whole year. Moreover, the effect on management was significant. In this case the company monitored the vans to every stop they made and as a result they could clearly identify where they encroached on each others' areas. Now, the workload is more evenly distributed across drivers, vans and geography in order ensure that the workload is properly distributed and mileage is more evenly distributed across the whole fleet.

A third example is from a mid-sized road haulage company operating a fleet of around 50 vehicles. Here the challenges for the transport management team include compliance with limited drivers' hours, the need to maximise vehicle usage whilst reducing fuel costs and overheads

With fleet tracking now operational, customers are kept up to speed with accurate arrival estimates and the system helps with planning; driving time, wasted fuel and inaccurate overtime payments have all been reduced, making the best use of the entire fleet. Even small reductions in distance travelled can yield a very worthwhile saving when a vehicle does just six to eight miles to the gallon.

So, from these three very diverse examples of real case studies, ranging from a small fleet of vans up to a large fleet of HGV trucks, to common themes emerge.

Firstly, all cases report a significant saving in fuel expenditure - and that saving in itself far outweighs the running costs of the tracking system used. Secondly, each business in its own way has found it relatively straightforward to improve their overall operational efficiency through applying the additional knowledge that fleet tracking can deliver, to either working more efficiently or delivering enhanced customer service.