4 Benefits Of Route Planning For Your Fleet

How efficient is your route planning for your fleet? When a customer calls and needs service, do you know which driver to send to handle that need swiftly and efficiently, and how to get the driver to the customer as quickly as possible? Route planning is an essential part of running a successful business that uses fleet vehicles. Here are some reasons why fleet route planning and the right route planning software are so essential to your success.

1. Route Planning Prevents Traffic Delays

Cloud technology and GPS positioning allows fleet managers to see a real-time picture of where their vehicles are and what traffic conditions are like. This means they can now avoid delays by routing drivers around known traffic problems and choosing the best, most efficient route for the time of day and current traffic conditions. This means that even during rush hour, drivers can easily get to their destination at the specified appointment time.

2. Improve Customer Satisfaction

No customer likes to have a three-hour window of time when a driver will arrive for a service appointment. People are busy, and they have better ways to spend their time than waiting for your service professional to arrive. Yet without accurate route planning, you can't give accurate arrival times. One of the best fleet management tips you can embrace is to use your route planning and fleet management software to provide customers with accurate arrival estimates and small appointment windows. This will increase customer satisfaction tremendously.

3. Save Money on Fuel

Fuel is one of your biggest expenses, but planning routes efficiently will help you cut your fuel costs. In general, planning routes ensures that your drivers are spending less time on the roads driving, and less drive time means less fuel expense.
Route planning will shorten driving time, and therefore fuel use, in several ways. Taking the shortest route possible is usually the most fuel-efficient option, and route planning allows you to do this. However, when traffic is heavy, you may actually burn more fuel by sitting in traffic. Route planning can help by allowing you to route drivers around these traffic problems.

4. Improve Safety for Your Drivers and Fleet

The more time your drivers spend on the road, the greater their risk of having a serious accident. Drivers who are sent through heavy traffic or difficult construction zones are more anxious and stressed. Planning your routes to avoid these situations will make the drivers less stressed and improve the overall safety of your fleet.

Improve Your Route Management Planning With GPSONEPLUS

GPSONEPLUS uses Google Enterprise Edition Maps, which provides an accurate look at traffic conditions and routes. You can quickly and effectively deliver real-time routing to your drivers based on current traffic updates as you focus on improving your route planning. Learn more about Track Your Truck's mapping features, or contact us to schedule a free demo of our fleet management software, and see how it can make a difference in your fleet and your business.

Top 5 Fleet Facts: Asset Tracking

Asset tracking software is an essential investment for any business that owns powered or non-powered assets. Whether the business has shipping containers, construction equipment, trailers, or even generators, monitoring location and utilization is important.
These are the 5 main benefits of asset tracking:

1. Mitigate Theft and Unauthorized Usage
   
   What if there was a simple way to monitor your assets to prevent theft and recover stolen equipment? Geofencing technology allows you to draw a border around your job site or specific area, then send you real-time alerts if your equipment leaves that location. With these insights, you can prevent unauthorized use and quickly recover your stolen equipment.
2. Increase Productivity It’s easy to lose track of equipment when it is spread across multiple job sites. With asset tracking software you can access information about engine hours and location. Don’t waste time looking for equipment or guessing the amount of time your employees spend on the job.
3. Monitor Hours of Service Powered asset tracking solutions connect to an engine and have the ability to monitor engine hours. Improve customer service and simplify your billings by becoming aware of exactly how long your equipment was in use on the job site.
4. Manage Maintenance All powered and non-powered assets need to be well maintained in order to work properly. Track your maintenance activities and manage your schedule easily with asset tracking solutions.
5. Regulate Asset Use How often are you using your assets? Is there equipment that sits unused for months at a time? It may be necessary to downsize your fleet size in order to save money on maintenance.

Asset tracking technology works best to improve overall fleet efficiency and business profitability when combined with other fleet management software modules from Silent Passenger.

The Future Of Fleet Management

As a fleet manager, your goal is to keep your fleet running at its best, while effectively meeting your customers’ needs. Because of the continuing growth of technology, fleet managing is an ever-changing profession, with new technology constantly coming to market designed to make your job easier. Keeping an eye on the future of fleet management will help you plan for your fleet and embrace those technologies that will make your fleet as effective and efficient as possible. Here are three fleet management trends to anticipate:

The Reality of Autonomous Vehicles

It may sound like something out of a science fiction cartoon, but self-driving vehicles are not as far away as you might think. Of course, taking the driver out of the equation completely isn't likely to happen anytime soon, but autonomous vehicles will help your employees be more productive. These vehicles allow drivers to override the autonomous driving when necessary, but to focus on other tasks when routine driving conditions occur. These vehicles (or a combination of autonomous features with traditional driving) may be a safer option than trucks driven by distracted or sleepy drivers.

Automated Vehicle Sharing

Some companies have fleets filled with equipment or vehicles that multiple employees need to access. Managing a case of keys is time consuming and tedious, but new car-sharing technology can be implemented into the fleet to make it easier for drivers to access a vehicle when it is needed.
Using keycards and on-vehicle electronic immobilizers, employees can gain access to vehicles or equipment they are authorized to use whenever needed, while keeping access controlled for those without permission. Digital tracking ensures the fleet manager knows who is using the vehicle and where it is, keeping the fleet secure and flexible at the same time.

An Increasing Reliance on Fleet Telematics

Most fleet management tips you will find today will involve the use of GPS fleet tracking. This is not changing in the future. Tomorrow's fleet is going to rely largely on GPS tracking and fleet telematics systems. Telematics is not a new concept, but in the past, it was considered a feature for large fleets and million-dollar companies. This is changing, as more and more providers are offering scalable systems for smaller fleets, and telematics is reaching markets where it was not being used often.
In order to stay competitive, future fleets will absolutely need telematics systems. This is no longer going to be simply a nice feature to have. Continuing government mandates for electronic records and, in some countries, GPS tracking to reduce theft problems — combined with an increased demand for on-time deliveries and happy customers — is going to make telematics a necessity.
If you are ready to embrace this particular trend, GPSONEPLUS is here to help. With a selection of affordable, scalable and effective GPS vehicle tracking options, GPSONEPLUS can give you the tools you need to track and monitor your fleet.
Schedule your demo of GPSONEPLUS's fleet tracking programs today.

How GPS Trackers Are Saving Landscaping Companies Money

You know your landscaping company inside and out and can instantly quote how long it will take a given size crew to work at any particular job site, which is essential for improving your margins. At the same time, you have an idea that you could boost your bottom line by using technology when organizing and allocating work to your employees.
A landscaping company’s success will depend on hiring reliable, honest employees and protecting expensive assets — including trucks and the equipment they carry from site to site.
Since one important variable in your revenue flow has to do with transporting crews from one job to the next, many landscaping business owners have come to see the benefits of using a GPS tracker on each vehicle in the fleet.

The Role of Fleet Tracking Devices in a Landscaping Business

Whether you run a residential or commercial landscaping business, the use of fleet tracking devices can help you save money by protecting equipment against theft as well as increasing productivity.
What’s more, fuel costs will go down when you use GPS tracking data to identify inefficient routes (as well as unauthorized side trips).
How long do you estimate it will take crew members to mow and edge lawns and use blowers to clean up debris at the first location on their route today? If you noticed that they always take a bit longer for a job than you’d expect, it might be because they are making an unauthorized stop — such as to pick up breakfast because they were late leaving the house that day.
Before the existence of the Global Positioning System of satellites, you wouldn’t be able to see where your crew happens to be at any given time. Yet the GPS devices that show commuters where to turn next to reach their destination can also be used to track a vehicle’s progress when going from point A to point B. The data that is collected includes timestamps, so you will know exactly where a vehicle was and when. It’s a trivial matter to conceal a GPS tracker on each vehicle in your landscaping company’s fleet. The device can transmit information in real time, so you can look at your computer or smartphone to learn where your crews are and how long it should take them to reach their next site. Or, you can set up the GPS tracker to store information and then upload it to you periodically.
You can even harness the GPS data for weekly reports, such as a timesheet that your employees will need to sign, attesting that the records of their movements throughout the day are accurate and complete.
While this approach toward employee time cards may not be suitable for every landscaping business, it can be beneficial to owners who have already experienced some problems with employee time theft. The insult of paying landscaping workers an hourly rate while they are spending time in a bar, at the movies or attending to personal errands will be a thing of the past when you start to rely on state-of-the-art GPS tracking equipment for the fleet.
Not only will GPS trackers reveal driving patterns to help keep your workers honest, they can minimize the risk of losing valuable assets — namely, your vehicles and equipment. A stolen truck outfitted with a GPS tracker will keep broadcasting its position, which the police will use to find and arrest the criminals and return what they stole.

GPS Technology Basics

Keep these facts in mind when determining which type of system to get:
• You can hide a GPS tracker in a variety of locations — such as inside a bumper, under a seat or behind a sun visor.
• The GPS device can get power from the vehicle or from its own battery.
• GPS trackers can relay information to you through the cellular data network or with satellite connectivity (best in areas with spotty smartphone coverage).

Streamline Equipment Tracking and Reduce Costs With a GPS System

It’s natural that you will have questions about how to get started with equipment tracking — from what model and type of GPS tracking device to get, to the software that you use to process the information. The team at GPSONEPLUS is aware of the concerns of landscaping companies that want to get started with a GPS system. Call today for help sourcing suitable GPS trackers for your fleet.