Building a Fuel-Efficient Fleet: Help Drive Cost Savings and Sustainability with Telematics

Telematics is proving to be a valuable tool in enhancing fleet management and logistics, enabling businesses to leverage real-time data on their drivers and vehicles to help drive cost savings and promote sustainability.

By leveraging telematics data and analytics, fleet managers can:

• Optimise fuel consumption across their fleet
• Reduce their carbon emissions
• Cut their fuel costs

But how do you go about doing this, and how can you integrate telematics data into your company’s broader sustainability initiatives? 

Let’s take a look.

The role of telematics in monitoring fuel consumption

Telematics provides real-time data on several key aspects of vehicle operations, including fuel consumption.

This not only enables fleet managers and other relevant departments to make data-driven decisions, but can also help to generate fuel savings and improved efficiency across your fleet.

Here’s how:

Identifying inefficient driving behaviour

Driving behaviours such as idling, harsh braking, rapid acceleration, or speeding all contribute to increased fuel consumption. By tracking and analysing these behaviours, you can see which of your drivers use the most fuel and why.

With these insights, you can offer targeted feedback and training to your drivers to correct inefficient driving habits. This approach helps ensure that every driver – and therefore every vehicle in your fleet – uses their fuel more efficiently.

Making vehicle maintenance and fuel efficiency easier

Did you know that tyres can account for up to 20% of a vehicle’s fuel consumption?

So just one flat tyre could impact how much each trip is costing you, and this could be even worse in the face of bigger mechanical problems.

The good news is that telematics systems can track multiple vehicle health indicators, such as engine performance, tyre pressure, and fluid levels. This makes preventative maintenance much easier, something that is critical for optimal fuel efficiency as poorly maintained vehicles are likely to consume more.

These tools can also provide real-time alerts about issues that can directly affect fuel efficiency, such as a change in tyre pressure or a clogged air filter, enabling you to promptly address any issues and prevent unnecessary fuel wastage.

Tracking fuel usage across your fleet

Regularly monitoring fuel usage across your fleet with telematics systems allows you to spot consumption trends and identify any anomalies. For example, sudden spikes in fuel use might indicate damage to the vehicle or inefficient driving practices.

These tools can offer detailed reports that break down fuel consumption by vehicle and driver, helping you identify specific areas where fuel efficiency can be improved. By making sure that every vehicle in your fleet operates at peak fuel efficiency, you can help reduce waste and cut costs. As we well know, fuel isn’t cheap right now.

What’s more, according to the Vehicle Certification Agency, lowering fuel consumption and wastage will also decrease the amount of CO2 emitted by your vehicles. This reduction in greenhouse gas emissions is critical for companies aiming to minimise their environmental impact and meet sustainability targets.

5 strategies for building a fuel-efficient fleet

Understanding the importance of telematics in fuel efficiency is one thing, but it’s important that businesses are taking the right steps towards creating a fuel-efficient fleet.

Keeping that in mind, here are five actionable strategies you can implement to help save money and promote more sustainable driving practices.

1. Route optimisation

Cloud connected navigation systems can provide access to updates on traffic conditions, road types, and vehicle loads. As a result, these tools can suggest the most fuel-efficient routes for your drivers.

They can also receive real-time notifications and make adjustments to routes based on changing conditions, such as traffic jams or road closures. This flexibility helps maintain fuel efficiency even in unpredictable circumstances.

By ensuring that all your drivers use these systems to avoid traffic, reduce idle times, and minimise unnecessary detours, you can lower fuel consumption and reduce costs for every vehicle.

2. Improved vehicle maintenance

Setting service rules based on important metrics such as time and mileage can help to prevent breakdowns and ensures your vehicles operate at peak efficiency.

Regular maintenance, such as using manufacturer-approved oil, replacing air filters, and checking wheel alignment, can also help reduce fuel consumption and lower carbon emissions.

However, achieving this requires more than routine vehicle inspections. By leveraging real-time telematics data, you can keep each vehicle in optimal condition and address mechanical issues as soon as they are detected.

3. Benchmarking and performance analysis

As we’ve seen, fleet managers are able to compare fuel consumption across different vehicles, and drivers, through the use of telematics.

The ability to identify your top-performing vehicles and drivers allows you to establish benchmarks and set targets for the rest of your drivers to meet. This also makes performance analysis much easier.

With that in mind, it’s a good idea to set your driving benchmarks as early as possible. You can always adapt these as you go. This enables you to promote a culture of continuous improvement, something we’ll look at in more detail next.

4. Regular training and support

It’s a good idea to regularly review telematics data to identify trends and patterns, such as harsh braking, speeding, or idling, revealing which drivers may need a little more training and support.

These detailed insights give the opportunity to offer tailored training and advice. You should support each driver in the areas that they need to improve on the most, while encouraging a culture of continuous development across your fleet.      

5. Driver incentive programs

Lastly, by focusing on driver behaviour and providing additional training, you could see fuel efficiency improve across your fleet.

Adopting better driving habits and driving conservatively can help drivers to achieve optimal fuel economy. Simple changes to driving style, such as maintaining a steady speed and using gentle pedal pressure, can help to improve fuel economy by up to 20%.

By promoting a company culture that encourages energy-efficient driving practices, fleet managers can help to reduce their company’s fuel consumptions, leading to long-term cost savings.

To achieve this, it’s a good idea to implement a driver incentive program that promotes safer and more sustainable driving practices that can save fuel and money.

The best way to get a solid program in place is to understand your driver’s needs and motivations, set clear objectives, and make sure you’re giving them the right incentives.

How to integrate telematics data into broader sustainability initiatives

Telematics not only helps you to reduce fuel consumption, but can also support broader sustainability initiatives.

These tools can facilitate collaboration across departments, such as logistics and procurement, ensuring that telematics data is used effectively to make critical decisions impacting all sustainability goals. For example, the procurement team might use telematics data to justify investing in more fuel-efficient vehicles.