Taking Fuel Management High-Tech

There can be little argument that telematics has changed the way fleets collect and use data to improve fleet efficiency and overall operations.

Chris Ransom, manager of Solution Architects for Verizon Networkfleet, defines the issue of fuel management broadly.

“At a high level, fuel management is just a function of two things: distance and behavior,” Ransom said. “What you do within the distance and behavior parameters really drive what you’re talking about, so if you drive better and drive less, you’re going to use less fuel.”

The solution to the problem of fuel management for truck fleets is pretty straightforward for Toby Weir-Jones, product line management director, FleetOutlook for CalAmp. “There are two parts to managing fuel. The first is the most obvious — use less of it. The second is an extension

“There are two parts to managing fuel. The first is the most obvious — use less of it. The second is an extension of that goal, but is more about yield,” he said. “If a driver has to visit six sites during a day and we can find a way to get him to all six in 7.5 hours instead of 9 hours, the data suggests that he’ll be more efficient in all the driving conditions he encounters that day. It’s a combination of reduced idle time — for example, arriving at the scheduled time so the customer is ready — more consistent over-the-road movement, due to fewer traffic delays and more intelligent routing, and managing driver behavior so we don’t see as much abrupt acceleration and braking.”

Telematics has helped fleets tackle both fuel management and overall inefficiency in a number of ways. 

Among the most common are routing efficiency and reduction in idling. The latter, in particular, was a long-suspected waste of fuel, but it took the introduction of telematics and its ability to measure idling to identify the extent of the problem, and take steps to curtail it for fuel and emissions savings.

“Telematics, or GPS vehicle tracking, is especially helpful in achieving greater fleet fuel efficiency by making it possible to better manage routes, vehicle speed, idling time, fuel cards, and vehicle maintenance,” said Scott Sutarik, Business Development, OEM Sales Manager, Geotab Inc.

Elliot Batcheller, VP of Operations for GPS Insight, identified idling as still one of the biggest areas truck fleets can address to limit fuel spend.

“The primary focus for all fleets should be the reduction of true idle time,” said Batcheller. “True idle time is defined as the time a vehicle sits idle with the engine on and without the vehicle’s power takeoff (PTO) engaged. Once an idle time initiative has been put in place and that behavior addressed, speeding and aggressive driving, e.g. high rpm/rapid acceleration are typically addressed as those behaviors result in suboptimal engine performance and thus reduced mpg.”

While idling may have been one of the big revelations about fuel waste in the early days of telematics, WEX’s Kavanagh noted that, for many truck fleets, routing is where the biggest gains in fuel savings have been seen.
“That’s why a lot of time telematics is integrated with some sort of routing tool,” Kavanagh observed. “Some of the newer technology is designed to get a truck back on route from the point it left, not just from the point it’s not at. This is especially helpful in areas such as sanitation where a vehicle may have certain pickup points. Simply getting back on the route would cause them to miss spots or need to backtrack, thus increasing fuel usage.”

This is an example of industry-specific approaches that may net fleets even more efficiency and fuel gains. There are others as well.

“For example, service fleets, (e.g. mechanical contractors, landscapers, plumbing companies, etc.), tend to focus on optimizing their dispatch operations and/or improving the daily service schedules/routes of their drivers to decrease total miles traveled without a corresponding reduction in revenue,” Batcheller said. “Additionally, many organizations are using navigation devices enabled with real-time traffic that are integrated with their GPS devices to route drivers around traffic areas, ensuring higher productivity and less idle time in traffic. Fuel Card Integration has also become a key component of the major TSP’s solutions as it allows for fuel card transaction validation and the identification of fuel slippage in the field.”

Finding New Telematics Frontiers

While routing, idling, hard acceleration and the other well-known causes of fuel waste will continue to be the top of mind for fleet managers. There are new areas that telematics has helped fleet managers identify as a potential area of saving fuel.

Ransom of Verizon Networkfleet noted that “wasted” miles — those miles that are racked up by a driver running an errand or using the vehicle during off-hours are one of the new areas that fleet managers have identified through telematics-driven data collection.

“Technology has opened up many new opportunities for managing fuel better. Now it’s possible to send in-cab alerts to drivers for speeding, idling, and harsh acceleration,” said Sutarik of Geotab. “You can also integrate fuel cards with telematics for better security and management. By having insight into fuel costs and KPIs across the entire fleet you can stay in control and prevent possible fraud.”

It may be getting better insight and management of driver behavior that is the newest, and, perhaps most important, frontier in the area of fuel management and technology, particularly in the areas of gamification and scorecarding.

For Mark Wallin, VP of Product Management for Telogis, connecting the truck, the driver, and the work together is the key formula for increased efficiency. Scorecarding and gamification are a big piece of that.

“A more effective fuel management program must include the driver. If your fuel management goals are related to driver behavior and optimizing routes to drive fewer overall miles, then the ideal is to empower the drivers to achieve those goals. By introducing a gamification app that delivers a daily fuel management scorecard you are empowering your teams to self-correct and introducing friendly competition among those in their groups,” he said. “Everyone wants to be at the top of that leaderboard. You will also find more opportunities to reward and encourage the ones who do well and train the ones who fall short.”

And, gamification and scorecarding have benefits beyond fuel management.

“The ultimate part of gamification in addition to saving fuel is keeping drivers safe — in terms of speeding and harsh braking,” said Joe Castelli, VP Fleet and Commercial Operations, LoJack Corp.

While scorecarding and gamification may be growing in popularity in terms of helping both controlling fuel spend and improving safety and overall efficiency, it still has some way to go before it matures, according to WEX’s Kavanagh.

“We’re just scratching the surface of what the story can be,” he said. “Fueling data tells a fairly detailed story; however, when you add additional data points such as telematics, traffic/maintenance data, etc. it begins to reveal a different picture. This view allows you to impact driver behavior in a meaningful way.”

Showing how the driver’s actions fit into the bottom line is another way that scorecarding is benefiting fleets.

“We believe the driver scorecard is an essential tool to support and develop your employees and give them visibility into how their actions directly impact their paycheck and the company’s bottom line,” said Weir-Jones of CalAmp.

Immediate feedback is another area that will help fleets control fuel cost, according to Sutarik.

“In-vehicle coaching makes it possible to send the driver an alert in real-time so they can correct the behavior immediately. For example, you can tell them to stop idling or speeding,” he said.

Getting the Biggest Gains

Scorecarding and gamification to help monitor and change driver may have some of the biggest gains truck fleets have made in terms of improving fuel management, but for Verizon Networkfleet’s Ransom, the initial, and perhaps biggest, gains in fuel management had a surprising origin.

“The Great Recession of 2008 especially for companies that used vehicles to do their business was their gain,” he said. “They had to work very quickly to manage their entire business better — particularly fuel. Fuel was very expensive in 2008. The No. 1 gain was really to focus them on fuel management — that doesn’t mean they weren’t focused on fuel management at that time — but it was incumbent on businesses that wanted to survive to reduce their costs and do it very, very quickly, and we’re talking about examining more efficient vehicles and alternative-fuel vehicles, and technologies such as fuel cards and GPS, and telematics, and fuel management, and routing software. That was the fastest acceleration of fuel-related technologies I’ve seen in my lifetime. It was the No. 1 gain if you take that out a little bit — the variety or combination of solutions that was really the biggest gain for companies.”

Geotab’s Sutarik sees the ability to have access to real-time data as one of the biggest gains fleets have derived in terms of fuel management.

“This data makes it possible to view trends, concerns, and opportunities instantaneously,” he said. “Having information on fleet and driver behavior gives fleets the tools needed to implement cost savings rapidly as opportunities arise.”

Building on that, diving deeper into the real costs associated with fuel has been another big gain for fleets, according to WEX’s Kavanagh.

“Instead of saying I can get 3 cents at station X or 1 cent at station Y or nothing at station Z, they’re looking at what it’s going to take to get to station X,” he said. “It becomes more than just the price at the station, as it’s really about the true cost of fueling for the vehicle.”

But, all of the benefits of managing fuel may not show up directly on a company (or fleet) balance sheet. Some of the savings and benefits may be more intangible, according to LoJack’s Castelli.

“One that might not show up on the balance sheet is the opportunity for a company to make a green statement,” he said. “It becomes a good promotional opportunity along the lines of my provider is trying to do something for the environment, trying to reduce carbon footprint. This is a heck of a tool to use for a promotional statement.”

Another gain may be more fundamental, according to Telogis’ Wallin. It’s an understanding of how the vehicle, the driver, and the work all fit together. “When you look at fuel management — the way in which you do work — from the way you develop your territories, how do you drive to your job sites, how you determine most efficient route, how do you ensure those routes are best — that work is really driving your fuel usage,” he said. “Having a way to optimize that is another one of those levers you can use to look at your entire enterprise and manage it much more effectively and achieve the fuel savings you’re looking for.”

Looking Ahead

The next step in truck fuel management is a combining of the best of both worlds in the form of integrating fuel cards and telematics.

“We find that this is the most common integration that customers turn on,” said Batcheller of GPS Insight. “The ability for fleets to monitor their fuel card transactions based on a number of factors, to include the location of the vehicle, to identify fraud and to simplify IFTA reporting for tax purposes is a no-brainer and easily one of the most significant gains in fuel management for fleets as far as telematics is concerned.”

Posted Date : March 22 2016