Working as a fleet manager who is constantly looking for ways to simplify operations and reduce costs, you might consider investing in GPS tracking technology. However, the question that often arises is – what’s the real return on investment (ROI) for this technology? Make sure you roll up your sleeves, and let’s dive deeper into the ROI of GPS tracking for your fleet.

As all we know, GPS tracking systems are more than just tools that track vehicles – they offer fleet managers real-time access to data about their vehicle’s locations, speeds, idling times, and route histories. The data can be used in the present moment and for future strategies to make some improvements in operational efficiency and cost reduction.

One of the most benefits of using GPS tracking systems is real-time data. So, let’s start here. Efficiency and productivity depend on how you use it and how you implement it in your daily work routine. There are some aspects you have to understand to get the best out of it. Let’s look forward and discuss them.

• Optimize routes. It is crucial to know real-time traffic details when you are optimizing your routes in the present. This is one of GPS tracking benefits, which will let you avoid traffic jams or car accidents on roads, which saves you some money on fuel consumption and reduces wear-and-tear on vehicles.
• Reduce idle time. While GPS tracking provides you with real-time data like vehicle location, speed, and routes, you are able to monitor idle time and get alerts and reports on it. You can set it to get automatic alerts from specific vehicles, certain days and times, in certain landmark groups, or any combination of them, and share it in SMS text messages, email, or even the driver’s Garmin device. The thing is how you use it. The most significant benefit of reducing idling time is saving traveling time and fuel costs. 

For example, your goal is to reduce daily vehicle idle time from one hour to 20 minutes. If the average cost of gasoline is $3.50, and one hour of idle time equals one gallon of fuel, then the gasoline cost savings per vehicle is $2.34 per day. This is saving you $46.80 per month or $562 per year. Imagine if you had a fleet of 25 trucks; it would save you $14,050 for gasoline from only one alert!

Here are some leading steps on how you can apply idling time-reducing strategy in your company:

1. Monitor the idling times of each vehicle – set alerts and make sure it reaches you and connects with the driver in real-time to identify problems and take action in the present moment.
2. Educate your drivers that the company is using no-idling policies – make sure they understand all the benefits of reducing financial and environmental costs.
3. Each driver is an individual case, so make sure you adapt the idling strategy to every driver because their routes can vary. Two-way communication is the best for finding the most stable solution.
4. When it comes to motivation, don’t forget to reward your drivers who use a no-idling policy and create a positive loop. The reward can be mentioning them in the performance scoreboard, an additional bonus to their salary, a ticket for relaxing entertainment, courses for deepening their competencies, and everything else that your drivers find meaningful.

• Improve dispatching efficiency. Using GPS tracking with real-time location makes it easier to distribute tasks more efficiently so that dispatchers get load ready in time, knowing what closest vehicle is to them, as it can reduce travel time and fuel cost, too.

As we all know, vehicles are not driven by themselves in these times yet, but there are sitting drivers behind the wheel. So, this human aspect has its own positive and negative effects on operational costs. Using a GPS tracking system helps monitor driver’s behavior like harsh braking, rapid acceleration, or speeding, but understanding its effect on efficiency is more important. If you address these behaviors with drivers properly, you can reduce the cost of maintenance and fuel costs, too.  

Prevention of risky driving is always the best way, so be sure to track unsafe driving. When addressing it to the driver, provide some training if needed, find out what the problem is, and make the driver understand how using great driving practice helps prevent and avoid accidents on the road and prolongs vehicle life. By correcting drivers’ behavior and removing as much harsh braking as wearing the vehicle park and rapid acceleration, which reduces fuel efficiency, you will have more money that your company could invest forward and calm mind because of improved safety. 

There are two main components of this work – the driver and the truck. Priority is their security. Focusing on safety and thinking in terms of ROI, we will review other benefits of GPS tracking real-time alerts, which can give us information about present deviations from the planned routes, and help in emergencies or theft situations. Here are some things to consider when talking about security:

• Make sure you set up real-time alerts for unauthorized truck use or deviation from the planned route. This will enable immediate response and may avoid accidents or vehicle misuse.
• Use geofencing features to create virtual boundaries, which will allow you to track when a truck enters or exits these areas and ensure drivers keep driving to their routes.
• How much does cost a stolen truck? Just imagine dealing with it with ease when you know that by using a GPS tracking system, you can locate and recover stolen trucks quickly and avoid big disruption to operations.
• Driver fatigue monitoring by analyzing driving patterns and hours while driving and resting routine leads to less probability of potential accidents. 
• GPS tracking can help reduce the risk of getting penalties from regulatory authorities by ensuring your drivers are guided by safety regulations. 
• For work to go with the flow, it’s important to monitor the health of the vehicle. Using GPS tracking systems to do it for you, you can plan for regular inspections and maintenance of trucks, preventing load delays and getting shipments on time.
• When it comes to human lives, it’s crucial to locate your vehicles at present time in emergency situations. There is nothing more important than a competent and loyal driver.

We just covered the majority but not all sides, considering the ROI of GPS tracking systems. I need to mention that the stronger effect of ROI depends on how and where you use the GPS tracking system. Make sure you get most of the real-time data and history data to make informed decisions and apply changes to get the most value and effectiveness. It’s all about seeing positive ROI even second month when starting to use GPS tracking systems and applying it to every point of everyday work routine for long-term gratifying results.