Using GPS to Improve Fuel Efficiency
- February 4, 2014
- By: Vonigo
GPS technology is a powerful ally for multi-site services business owners who want to reduce their fuel costs. Vehicle fuel is the lifeblood of any services business, and without your fleet, there is no way to service to your customers. GPS can help you fight the rising cost of fuel by helping you more efficiently manage your fleet vehicles, while still delivering the same quality of excellent service to your customers.
Here are five ways you can use GPS fleet monitoring to save money on fuel.
1. Minimize Engine Idling
Engine idling is part of the natural life of a vehicle. Running the engine at red lights, stop signs and other pauses in traffic is unavoidable. However, there are several fuel-wasting behaviors GPS can help you eliminate: engine idling while parked, burning gas just to keep the vehicle’s cabin warm, or to power the air conditioner.
GPS technology can help you monitor your driver’s behavior by collecting data about the operation of your fleet. Long periods of engine activity without motion are recorded and can be eliminated with the help of the GPS data log. Use a GPS system to ensure that fuel is used for delivering serivce to customers, and other profit-generating activities only.
2. Monitor Driver Speeds
Driving the right speed for the road has many benefits, including fuel savings. Many cities synch their traffic signals to ensure that vehicles traveling a consistent speed will hit all green lights along a single street. GPS can tell you when your vehicles are being driven at the correct speeds for the roads along their routes. Not only does driver speed monitoring make travel times faster, your engines will also perform more efficiently when drivers are not idling at red lights, or throttling the accelerator and stopping suddenly.
3. Optimize Routing
Did you know that eliminating left-hand turns from your routes is an effective way to increase your vehicle’s fuel efficiency and reduce travel times? It’s true. Left turns at stop lights and busy intersections are frequently delayed by oncoming traffic, unlike right-hand turns that can be made safely at almost any time, including at times when the light is red (in most cities).
GPS technology allows you to optimize vehicle routes to reduce or eliminate left-hand turns. The same routing functionality allows your drivers to anticipate and avoid road construction and spot oncoming traffic jams.
4. Manage Vehicle Records
Maintaining vehicle records allows you to prevent fuel theft and ensure that company gas cards are being used for fleet purposes only. GPS technology can help you monitor fleet mileage versus fuel purchases. A GPS system can also help you maximize fuel purchases by alerting your drivers to preferred fill-up stations that offer competitive fleet pricing, or other benefits for business owners.
An additional benefit of GPS vehicle records management is to ensure that company vehicles are used only on company time, and no after hours driving occurs.
5. Proactive Vehicle Maintenance
Keeping track of your vehicle miles is a complex, time consuming task, especially when you maintain a large fleet. A poorly-performing engine can silently siphon off hundreds or thousands of dollars in fuel.
Deploying a GPS system for your vehicles is a fast and efficient way to collect and monitor data automatically. A GPS system can collect and analyze reams of data about your fleet, including the number of miles traveled for each vehicle, with the ability to alert you when it’s time for one of your vehicles to get a tune up.
Vonigo integrates Nextraq fleet tracking GPS, to simply and powerfully manage your work vehicles. To learn more about how Vonigo’s GPS integration can help you reduce fuel costs, schedule a free demo today.