Managing a large fleet of vehicles on a daily basis can sometimes be a hefty task. With so many moving parts, ever-changing requirements and client deadlines to meet, ensuring that your vehicles are all managed correctly can be pivotal to a transport company’s success. You may feel that your business’ vehicle fleet is already running well, but there are always things you can do to ensure the fleet runs as smoothly as possible.
In this blog, we are going to discuss some of the ways in which you can improve vehicle fleet management, taking a look into how these tactics work to improve fleet functionality on a day-to-day basis. Transport management is a hugely important aspect of many businesses, so it is vital that it is done to an optimum level.
Promote Driver Health and Safety
Ensuring that your fleet of drivers are all working in safe conditions can have a great knock-on effect when it comes to performance and everyday costs. Safer working conditions mean that drivers are not endangered while on the road, which can be a good motivator and can lead to better performances. Better health and safety measures also lower the chance of the vehicles getting damaged, reducing repair costs, and lowering insurance renewal prices.
You can make driving operations safer by introducing fleet management systems. These systems include in-vehicle sensors that measure driver performance, providing data based on multiple important metrics. The in-vehicle sensors can track speed, idling, driving styles, and time driving away from scheduled routes, amongst others.
The inclusion of vehicle monitors will give you a chance to analyse driver performance, allowing you to provide constructive feedback to your drivers, both on a safety level and an overall performance level. Furthermore, drivers are likely to follow company guidelines and policies more closely.
Reducing Fuel Costs
With the price of petrol and diesel being incredibly high right now, finding ways to reduce fuel costs can save your company a bundle. While there is nothing we can do about the price of fuel, there are certain tactics we can employ to make sure that your fleet is as fuel-efficient as possible. Fuel costs are arguably the most expensive part of running a fleet of vehicles, so being able to reduce these costs by even a few per cent can lead to huge savings.
Drivers can unknowingly be wasting fuel through inefficient driving habits. Things like driving too fast, braking or accelerating too harshly, and leaving their vehicle’s engine running while idle may not feel like much in isolation, but over the course of a week can add up to a lot of wasted fuel.
It will be worth your time to take your drivers aside and provide them with additional training. Simply explaining how making simple changes to their driving styles can have a great impact on the fuel efficiency of your fleet. You can even turn it into a friendly competition between drivers if you think that will be a helpful motivational factor.
Paperless Compliance
An easy way of improving vehicle fleet management is to convert your systems from paper-based to digital. Truthfully, maintaining paper-based systems is an outdated concept in 2022, and moving to digital makes the most sense when running a modern business.
Digital systems and workflows can not only help optimise your vehicle fleet’s performance, they can also improve time management and drastically reduce the risk of human error. Digitising your business will also allow you to be able to improve data analysis. If you are able to utilise in-vehicle sensors previously mentioned in this article, you will be able to make clear comparisons between drivers and track progress.
Digitising your company can make your business much more efficient, whether that be financially speaking or in terms of time and effort. Digital information can be stored a lot easier and shared a lot more quickly. Digital information that you wish to share amongst employees can also be interacted with, making it easier for an open discourse to be had on selected work documents.
Hire A Transport Manager
Plenty of businesses that operate within the transport industry are still trying to get the most out of their fleet of vehicles without employing a transport manager. Hiring a dedicated transport manager means that you have someone on hand at all times who deals with the day-to-day running of your company’s vehicles.
A transport manager will check for qualified drivers, ensure that vehicle maintenance is of a top-quality, will keep drivers working to a schedule and will take on the overall responsibility of the vehicle force. Having an experienced transport manager
Contact Flagship Partners
If your business is in need of a transport manager to help with the day-to-day running of your vehicle fleet, then get in contact with Flagship Partners today.
Flagship Partners can provide you with a highly-skilled, dedicated and experienced transport manager, who will help guide your transport team to being as efficient and well organised as possible.
To get in touch with Flagship Partners, you can give us a call on 03300 553643 or fill out our online contact form.
