The 2018 Question: How Can My Business Save On Fuel?

The cost of fuel has become a very hot topic in 2018.

For some businesses there could be a double whammy of fuel cost increases in the near future: a national fuel tax increase of between 9 to 12 cents per litre and the addition of a regional fuel tax of 11.5 cents per litre in Auckland.

Ken Shirley, CEO of the Road Transport Forum told One News that, "all your supermarket goods, all whiteware - about 12 per cent of that price component is actually in the road transport factor. So you increase the road taxes, you'll put the price up on all goods."

The regional fuel tax would considerably affect the average small to medium-sized business, Michael Barnett, Auckland Regional Chamber of Commerce and Industry chief executive told the NZ Herald . He estimated that the additional cost would be between $150 and $200 per week. Fleet operating businesses will be faced with the challenge of whether to pass the full cost onto the customer, a portion of the cost, or add no cost at all.

Teletrac Navman’s 2017 Telematics Benchmark Report found that 15% of transport and fleet professionals chose fuel as one of their largest expense areas. Promisingly, almost half (46%) of survey participants said that after using telematics their organisation has reduced its fuel expenditure.

How can a GPS fleet management system help reduce fuel costs?

Advanced fuel management

Particularly useful for sectors with machines like construction and forestry.

Data collected from vehicles with a GPS Tracking System integrated with partner hardware can generate fuel reports by vehicle, job site, fueling event, and more – replacing algorithm calculations with actual measurements including fuel burn rate in litres per hour.

By measuring fuel burn in your assets, you will be able to:

· detect and fix fuel-related equipment problems

· plan and optimise fuel truck visits to site

· eliminate unnecessary refuelling trips

· document fuel use for job costing

· detect fuel theft

· track vehicle fuel use over time to identify the most efficient vehicles.

Address driver behaviour

Useful for all sectors – especially those with large fleets.

Telematics allows fleet managers to gain insight into driver and operator behaviour such as harsh breaking, harsh acceleration and excessive idling, which all contribute to an excess of fuel use. Many businesses find that having objective numbers on a sheet makes conversation around driver behaviour much easier –it takes the emotion out of it.

Optimise routing

Very important to the service sector, where no day on the road is the same.

A GPS tracker system gives drivers and dispatchers a fast, efficient way to plan their daily routes. The system allows for route optimisation (the shortest distance and the fastest time on multi-stop routes) saving time and money, and ultimately improving the fuel efficiency of the fleet.

Maintain the fleet

Key for all sectors and very useful to track if the fleet is growing.

Tracking and staying on top of the maintenance of vehicles and assets can contribute to saving fuel costs. With GPS fleet management software, fleet managers can base the maintenance on distance travelled, to ensure that the most hardworking vehicles are well looked after.