They recently released a study on how much they are able to save using fleet tracking to reduce costs and save their residents money. The council has 380 vehicles that deliver services to residents. The fleet is made up of cars, minibuses, vans, refuse trucks, and road sweepers. All of these vehicles cost two million pounds to run on an annual basis. In March 2010, the TomTom Link300 was added to 260 of the vehicles the council runs.

A year later they have released their savings. They were able to reduce their fuel spending by 100,000 pounds in just over a year. This is a staggering amount when one considers that fuel costs have also increased in the last year.

West Dunbartonshire is looking for more than just fuel savings though. They have also looked at long term savings and less pollution. With the additional savings in fuel because they are using less fuel to do their tasks, the council is able to reduce their CO2 emissions. The TomTom ecoPlus will be set up on a number of vehicles to address the pollution issue.

Even for those who do not want to use vehicle tracking, the devices have shown how changing driver behaviour can be a savings to any fleet company. By reducing excessive fuel wastage it is possible to save money. For any company that wants to find a way to protect the environment and save money, the council is a good role model.

Reduce Both Wage and Fuel Costs

Without a doubt, wages and fuel are the two biggest expenditures that any business with a fleet of vehicles can incur – meaning that it is imperative to keep these costs as low as possible. With the price of fuel at its highest rate in history, the emphasis is on the business owner to ensure that they are getting the highest fuel economy possible from their vehicles. How can this be helped by installing a tracking device though? Well, a tracking device will allow the business manager to monitor activities that are contributing towards a higher fuel bill – activities such as taking longer routes, speeding and leaving the engine idle when stopped. These might not sound like much, but they all add up to a massive saving!

When it comes to wages, tracking systems can protect the business against any dishonest claims made by employees, such as the amount of time they have spent driving and the amount of miles that they need to claim for. Nearly every driver has at some point fiddled their mileage sheets, but with a tracking device the information is with the manager before the driver even fills out his forms! In fact, there is no need for the driver to even fill out forms, as the mileage is already automatically and accurately calculated.

Track Locations

This system is already used by many of the emergency services throughout the country, but there is no reason why it can’t work for your business too. Being able to map out the locations of your fleet means that you will always know who is closest to that vital job or who is simply sitting in a service station and avoiding work! Integrating the system with satellite tracking and other geo location devices means that the driver should also never get lost, as direct routes can be supplied to them straight from the office.

Security

Vehicles and plant are probably the most valuable assets that a business has in terms of cost, therefore they are often the targets for unscrupulous thieves. Of course, most vehicles are insured against theft, but what about the income lost when the business is unable to work to full capacity? A tracking system will allow any stolen vehicle to be tracked around the country and therefore ensure that it is returned in the quickest amount of time.

A tracking system is also an important tool for ensuring the safety of your staff. This is especially true when a business has a workforce that often works alone or in areas where there are potential dangers. Being able to locate an employee who is potentially in danger is something that could save their life – and protect the business from costly legal action.

Increase Customer Service

Many businesses rely on a speedy response to ensure that their customers are happy with the service that they receive. In this highly competitive world, customer service is the one aspect that a business can still stand out in and having a tracking device will ensure that vehicles can be monitored and stationed in the correct places to respond to any customer requests. A tracking system will also allow a business to immediately tell their customers how long a member of staff will be and also if there are any delays in their response, due to traffic or other external circumstances.

Dispute Resolution

One of a business manager’s biggest roles is to resolve disputes, either between staff members or between a staff member and a customer. Due to the fact that a tracking system will log the date, time and length of every job attended, there can be no dispute regarding the location and promptness of the job. It can also help to settle staff disputes should one member of staff feel that they are being unfairly treated in terms of the jobs they are sent to.

Improve Staff Members’ Driving

We’ve all seen the van on the motorway doing 100mph, complete with the logo of the company emblazoned on the side, and we have all also thought some extremely negative thoughts about the company that this van driver works for! The staff of a business are the public face of the whole enterprise and as such poor driving will affect the reputation of the business as a whole – a reputation that most businesses have spent years trying to consolidate. A tracking system will provide information on any unsafe driving to the manager, who can then discuss the issue with the member of staff involved.

Motivate your Staff

Staff that don’t feel cared for are always going to be unproductive staff – that is an irrefutable fact of business. One thing that can really upset staff is being sent to a job alone and feeling that they have no protection should a situation occur – something that is remedied with the installation of a tracking device. With a tracking device, workers will know that they are constantly being monitored and that their employers care about their welfare.

A tracking system can also be used as a motivational tool because staff will be more conscious that their work patterns are being monitored. This will prompt them to ensure that they are as efficient as possible and to make sure that they attend any jobs on time and don’t make excuses for late arrivals.

Increase Productivity

Linked in with the above topic is the issue of productivity – something that will vastly increase when this system is installed in a vehicle. The driver will know that they are expected to perform a certain amount of tasks throughout the day and that therefore they are unable to simply go around slowly, not making the best use of their time. A tracking system will also decrease the amount of time that the driver has to spend on the phone – something that necessitates that they stop driving – therefore meaning that they can get to locations far more quickly.

Help the Environment

The environment is a hot topic throughout the world and most companies are bowing to public pressure and decreasing the amount of damage that they do to the earth every single day. By using a tracking device a business can be sure that they are always sending their drivers in the right direction and also that they are always asking the closest driver to attend – something that minimizes the amount of harmful fumes that a van releases into the atmosphere.

Duty of Care

Every single business has a duty of care towards their employees; a duty of care that means that they should always do everything possible to ensure that the safety of their employees is completely covered. A tracking device will meet this requirement and will ensure that all businesses can demonstrate that they are taking the safety of their employees seriously. This is especially important since the changes in rules issued by the Health and Safety Executive, which state that a company with lone workers or a fleet of vehicles has to periodically review their safety measures for employees.

This is why vehicle tracking can be critical to helping slash costs. Many companies are still suspicious of this technology and feel that such things as fuel cards are a much better way cutting costs. The fact of the matter is that vehicle tracking for most companies is a much more affective tool in cost cutting. That’s not to say that fuel cards are not useful or help to keep costs down, but they do not help to save costs in multiple ways.

Unfortunately vehicle tracking is often suspected by many businesses to be a gimmick or far too expensive for the rewards it offers. Both of which are untrue. It is a great shame that businesses do not realise this as it could help them to stay a lot more competitive.

Many companies feel that their staff do not take the Michael when it comes to using the vehicles out of work hours, but the fact of the matter is that statics prove otherwise.

Toilets+ have a Quartix vehicle tracking system installed in 32 of their vehicles. Since they have had the tracking system installed, they have calculated that they are making a saving of over £400 a month over their entire fleet of vehicles.

Much of the fuel savings have been made by getting rid of unnecessary engine idling. Many of their mobile workers were arriving on site and leaving their engine idling for long periods of time. This resulted in a massive waste of fuel.

Another way the system can help you to save money on fuel is by monitoring driver behaviour and speeding. By getting drivers to drive more sensibly and less aggressively it cuts down on fuel usage and can save a lot of money.

Toilets+ have also used the tracking system to keep tabs on start and finish times of their mobile team. This enables the payroll department to easily produce accurate timesheet reports and pay the team the correct amount of money with minimal effort.

If you were to get a tracking system on a 12 month contract with Quartix you would pay around 67p per day. In a 31 day month you would pay £20.77 per month. This is not the cheapest system on the market either. There are cheaper systems. But this is a reasonable price to pay and you do not have to enter into a lengthy contract.

There are multiple ways vehicle tracking can save you money, but lets just look at one for now, unauthorised use of company vehicles.

Lets take a fictional character called Henry. Henry uses his van on an evening to go to his girl friends house which is 5 miles up the road. He drives the vehicle very sensibly and does not race around. In other words he drives in an economical manner.

Lets say the company vehicle does around 25 miles to the gallon. That means Henry will use 6.2 gallons or 28.2 litres. At the moment the fuel costs 135.9p per litre of diesel at Asda the cheapest place to get it. This means that over the period of a month he will spend £38.32 per month on fuel just going to and from his girlfriend’s house.

Get vehicle tracking and you could put a stop to this. Once you take away the cost of vehicle tracking you would save yourself £17.55 per month. If you were to incorporate all the other journeys he makes which are un-work related. It would probably amount to a lot more. Multiply the saving across your whole fleet and you could be talking about a lot of money.

This does not take into account any of the other savings you can make with vehicle tracking.

With a vehicle tracking system you can generate reports for each vehicle in your fleet to prove exactly how many miles are private and how many miles are personal. This is considered hard evidence by the HMRC and will clear up any disputes of millage, making it quick, easy and painless to work out the business millage you want to claim as tax deductable.

The added advantage to this is that you can then accurately charge your employees for any fuel they use in company vehicles and will therefore also cut your fuel bills considerably. It’s a double bonus thanks to vehicle tracking.

Vehicle tracking can also help to increase productivity of the staff in the office and warehouse. You may ask how this is possible as you are not tracking the office and warehouse staff. Well it’s simple. Often staff back at base need to know where the various members of the mobile team are.

Traditionally this will be done by phoning them on their mobile phones, asking another member of the team who has sent them out on the job or guessing where they might be. All of these methods have drawbacks including the following; they are time consuming, inaccurate, rely on other members of the team being available, rely on the drivers being honest or to call someone on their phone if they do not have a hands free car kit is unsafe.

It was put to a vote before they went ahead with the vehicle tracking contract and many voted against it. The union was not in favour of the new tracking systems. They felt that there was no proof that the tracking systems would help to reduce costs and increase productivity.

After the first 12 months they have calculated a $677,000 saving which is almost as much as systems cost in the first place. This means that the tracking systems have as good as paid from themselves in just 12 months. This is a fantastic ROI and just goes to show how GPS vehicle tracking systems can well and truly save you a fortune and can easily pay for themselves.

This is just one of many stories of how vehicle tracking can help to stamp down on costs, increase productivity and up profits.

Cutting costs is more often than not dead simple to do. If you run a fleet of vehicles this is a good place to start as it costs your business in multiple ways.

Firstly the vehicle represents a cost to run it with fuel and maintenance. By stopping unauthorised use and bad driving technique you can cut out this problem. Next the vehicle is often a primary tool for many workers and where it goes the worker goes. Therefore if you track the vehicle, you track the worker. Some workers skive off. It’s always been a problem and as long as companies do not clamp down on it, it will always stay a problem. Therefore by tracking the vehicle you can cut out this problem.

Vehicle tracking is a tool which can pay for its self many times over and companies around the world are waking up to this fact.

The tracking system they use utilises CANbus integration which enables the tracking system to collect information about the engine and fuel consumption. Such information when running a fleet of HGVs can be invaluable and help save a lot of money, especially when you are running a fleet of 100 HGVs.

The managing director Iain Mitchell commented that the tracking system also helps to vastly improve communication and lower mobile phone bills. He also stated that he and his team were not 100% convinced to start with and therefore took some beswading, but since the installation 6 years ago they can see a vast improvement in the way they run things and are more than impressed with how telematics has helped them run their business.

We have tachograph integration, map client, transport management centre, advanced reporting and driver communication module all of which help to make up a sophisticated GPS vehicle tracking system.