Five Tips to Optimize your Vehicle Fleet Management

Managing a fleet of vehicles is tough work and it’s vital that fleet managers make the most of the resources available to them. A common theme with car and truck fleet management is the importance of proactivity and prevention. Since accidents and unexpected vehicle breakdowns are incredibly costly for fleet managers, it’s important to always stay ahead of them with preventative measures.

1. Use Preparation and Technology to your Advantage

From documenting things digitally to hands-free devices for drivers, while these services or devices have a bit of an extra cost or take some time to implement, they save fleet managers much larger expenses or headaches down the road. Being prepared with digital files makes them easier to find when a fleet manager needs to look back, and hands free devices cut down on the risk of drivers being distracted on the road.

Every fleet manager should already know this, but it is absolutely essential to pre-plan routes with their drivers. Consider traffic patterns and blockages, travel times, weather, and incident status reports. To go with advanced route planning, fleet managers should equip their drivers with a real-time weather alert system so they can immediately know when the roads are getting icy or hazardous due to other conditions. 

Just as important as pre-planning routes is having secondary plans for likely scenarios which could have a large impact on delivery time. This way, when a highway enroute is slowed down due to a car accident, a driver immediately knows their alternate route and can take it without having to spend time planning it out. Having these secondary options prepared ahead of time will ensure drivers can avoid clogged roads by being a step ahead of other drivers on the road when the unexpected happens.

2. Calculate and Monitor your Expected Expenditures 

Just like drivers on the road should know their route and alternate possibilities, a fleet manager should always calculate their expected expenditures and possible risk-adjusted expenditures ahead of time. A fleet manager should always be aware of their maintenance costs, and have looked at possible expenditures if one or more of their vehicles are suddenly not operational tomorrow. 

Along with this, it’s vital for fleet managers to be aware of a manufacturer’s warranty coverage and the value of their vehicles in case it’s time to upgrade their fleet and sell their existing vehicles. By tracking expenditures and possible saving opportunities, a fleet manager is more aware of how their day-to-day decisions are impacting the business, and what’s the best course of action when an unexpected expenditure comes up. 

 3. Reduce Idle Time for your Vehicles

This one might seem obvious, but aside from accident prevention and risk management, reducing idle time for vehicles is the main way for fleet managers to cut down on costs. By being organized and having deliveries and tasks pre-planned out for drivers, a fleet manager can easily cut down on dead time in which drivers would be waiting around. With a prepared schedule for everything, there are few reasons drivers shouldn’t be behind the wheel and on their way to their next destination. 

Since a fleet manager should calculate their costs of running company vehicles for the workday or workweek, these costs are already factored into their budget. If a fleet has the numbers to accommodate it, allowing employees to use a company vehicle during working hours to grab their lunch or do a quick errand reduces idle time for vehicles and allows for drivers to get back on route faster. Try to approach any challenges or decisions with the question, “How can I be sure idle time is kept to a minimum?” to ensure that your fleet’s operations are as efficient as possible.

4. Inspect and Maintain Vehicles Regularly

Preventative inspection and maintenance is vital to cut down on impromptu repairs and downtime for your vehicles. A great way to make the vehicle inspection process efficient is to have a maintenance checklist that your drivers or head of maintenance complete at the chosen times. Vehicles that aren’t maintained properly are more likely to break down and need repairs, resulting in downtime for your fleet that could have potentially been prevented with just a few minutes of maintenance checks.

Regularly checking tire pressure is especially important, as if affects just about every aspect of a vehicle fleet’s operations, from driver safety to fuel mileage. Fleet managers should be conscious of how temperature changes can cause fluctuations in tire pressure, and regularly check the tread depth on tires for signs of excessive wear and tear. Along with checking and replacing worn out tires, a fleet manager should be sure spare tires for their vehicles are fully inflated and to change out snow tires once the time is right for better fuel economy.

5. Have an Automated Key Management System

Managing key exchanges is an unexpected but frequent obstacle vehicle fleet managers run into, as they need to always ensure that drivers have access to the right set of keys in order to set off for delivery. Using Keycafe’s connected key locker and key management software, fleet managers are able to automate their key exchanges so drivers can easily pick up the keys they need as soon as it’s time to get going. 

Having an organized and automated system reduces the chances of keys getting lost or stolen and cuts out liability related to drivers holding onto keys overnight or outside of work hours. Fleet managers can easily cut down on key replacement and relocking costs while having complete control over their vehicle fleet’s key pickups and drop-offs. With Keycafe, fleet managers can give, revoke, and modify key accesses instantly from anywhere, receive real-time notifications when keys are picked up and dropped off, and see a full history of all past key accesses.

Find out more about the Keycafe’s benefits for vehicle fleets, and contact a sales rep on our website.