Everyone likes to save money. A penny saved is a penny earned, as the saying goes. But what if you could save money and do a better job at the same time by cutting down on customer wait times, contributing to better environmental outcomes, and operating more efficiently?
This is possible with telematics. Also known as vehicle tracking, it’s an excellent cost-saving method for businesses that operate a fleet of commercial vehicles. Telematics and vehicle tracking technology provides several opportunities for businesses to save money and increase performance within their operations.
Here’s a look at five ways that vehicle tracking can save your business money:
1. Reduce wastage
Depending on what your fleet is carrying, waste can be a real issue. Vehicle tracking can help you to waste less by helping fleet managers to get deliveries to their destinations on time, safely, and according to specifications.
Whether you’re hauling food, medicine, or concrete, vehicle tracking means fewer wasted loads and direct cost savings. It also helps to maintain your reputation as a reliable partner, ensuring that business continues to come your way in the future.
In addition, when your drivers are encouraged to take care of your fleet vehicles, their loads, know exactly where they’re going through route optimisation, and know the best places to refuel, your vehicles end up spending more time on the road earning your business money and providing a better level of service to your customers.
2. Achieve better fuel efficiency
The impact of road congestion on fuel efficiency is obvious: more traffic, more delays, more diversions, and more stopping and starting increases fuel consumption, thus causing the business to unnecessarily spend more money on fuel.
With telematics and vehicle tracking, however, you can use a huge range of metrics, tools, and data insights to help you to improve fuel efficiency. This is achieved by identifying inefficient vehicles, drivers with bad habits, and routes that have the most wasted miles. These problems can all be rectified by using a combination of fleet tracking tools and training programs to improve fuel efficiency metrics over time.
3. Lower your insurance premiums
According to several studies, vehicle tracking and telematics solutions can lead to significant reductions in insurance premiums. This is because telematics systems can be used as coaching tools for fleet managers to help their drivers develop better, safer driving habits. In addition to this, many insurance companies offer discounts to businesses that implement telematics and fleet tracking as part of a wider driver training and safety program.
Unfortunately, whenever a fleet vehicle is involved in an accident it’s often the driver that gets the blame. This is the case even when the fleet driver is not at fault. With telematics, however, you benefit from a better view of how the vehicle was driven and handled at the time of the accident, especially if the system is paired up with cameras. In essence, fleet tracking provides the visibility that fleet managers need to safeguard against unfair claims.
4. Fleet vehicles last longer
Eliminating unnecessary wear and tear on your fleet vehicles goes a long way to reducing maintenance and servicing costs. Thankfully, telematics and vehicle tracking offer a complete view over all your fleet vehicles and record all the data that you need to monitor and begin correcting bad driving habits that can accelerate vehicle wear and tear and ultimately impact your bottom line.
Driving habits like aggressive acceleration and sudden, harsh braking can place unnecessary stress on engine components, transmissions, brake pads, and tyres. The harder and more aggressively your vehicles are driven, the more frequently they’ll need repairs and maintenance. This not only costs money but also takes vehicles off the road unnecessarily, adding to the total cost.
Vehicle tracking makes it easier to encourage and promote safer and more efficient driving. Moderate speeds, slower acceleration, and progressive braking all help to reduce wear and tear and prolong the useful life of your vehicles.
5. Deter vehicle theft
Most fleet managers must deal with the risk of vehicle theft. Although the presence of CCTV and dashcams has deterred it to some extent, there are still plenty of occurrences of vehicle break-ins and thefts up and down the country.
Having a vehicle tracking system in place and putting prominent signage in place on and inside of your vehicles can help to deter thieves who are looking for a quick and easy job. Most would-be thieves don’t have the resources and/or know-how to disable and remove vehicle tracking systems. Since most criminals are looking for an easy way to make some cash with minimum risk, they are far less likely to target a vehicle that is being monitored with real-time telematics and vehicle tracking.
Begin saving money with vehicle tracking
Trakm8 offers a range of advanced hardware and software products to help you manage your fleet more effectively and save money. Our innovative telematics products can save you as much as 50% on vehicle insurance premiums and up to 11% in fuel savings.
We’ve worked hard to develop some of the most advanced devices and fleet management software on the market, and we’ve ensured that all our systems are quick to install and simple to use. With Trakm8, you can start tracking real-time vehicle data and transforming your fleet management immediately.
Based in Coleshill, UK, Trakm8 proudly holds the ‘Made in Britain’ marque. Get in touch to find out how Trakm8 can help you manage and optimise your fleet.
