Five Ways GPS Fleet Tracking Save (and Make) You

Saving money is making money, and Safety Track saves fleet companies hundreds, even thousands of dollars per year. These GPS Fleet Tracking units sport numerous features that make tracking vehicles and streamlining operations simple.

1. Use less fuel and stop speeding drivers
The EPA estimates that reducing speed by 10MPH increases fuel efficiency by 20%. Our HVAC customers report $150 savings per 10 vehicles in one month by keeping their drivers at a maximum of 65MPH. The owner of a towing company saved $4000 over two months just in fuel costs. Do the math for your business and add up your savings. The dollars add up fast-here’s a simple example with a very conservative estimate: 50 vehicles reduce speed and save $10 each per week in gas costs. That’s $26,000 in a year. Slowing down a speeding driver can also limit tickets, accidents and litigation against your company.

2. Limit unnecessary trips and unauthorized use
Customers tell us their employees off-route driving completely ends once they know a GPS fleet tracking unit is installed in their vehicle. No more extended lunches, driving off-route to go home to eat, run errands, etc.

One customer reported that one driver was traveling home 60 miles per day when they should have been working. That’s a potential savings of $15-20 in fuel per day. And that’s just for one driver.

3. Ensure proper work hours, lunch breaks and overtime records
This is self explanatory, and another area where you can save thousands of dollars per year. Employees won’t likely record bogus work, lunch or overtime hours if they know their work vehicle is being tracked. If you can gain just 30 minutes of productivity each day you will save about $3,000 per employee each year.
The more your workers actually work and record correct information, the more your business is operating cost-efficiently. The immediate impact GPS fleet tracking units provide in this category is mentioned quite often by our satisfied customers.

4. Monitor company gas purchases/gas cards
Lets face the facts–gas will only get more expensive, and some employees try to cut corners and cut money out of your bottom line. Can you afford even one employee stealing $20 in fuel every week ($1040/year) from your gas account? That’s $1040 you could put in your own gas tank! This is another area where questionable purchases can be tracked and verified with our easy-to-use GPS fleet tracking software.

5. Theft prevention
Track all your vehicles every two minutes and have alerts sent to your cell phone, email or PDA whenever your vehicle is started or moves outside of a designated area (geofence). This feature gives you peace of mind 24/7/365.

To summarize, below shows a standard cost savings by implementing a GPS fleet tracking system.

• Reducing speed on a single vehicle by 10MPH increases fuel economy by 20%
  - 7 gallon weekly decrease in fuel usage
  - Weekly fuel savings of $20-30
  - Annual fuel savings of $1,000-$1,500
  (varies based on MPG, daily miles driven and fuel cost)
• Eliminating unnecessary driving by 10 miles per day for a single vehicle
  - 4 gallons of fuel saved per week
  - Weekly fuel savings of $14
  - Annual fuel savings of more than $700
  (varies based on MPG and fuel cost)
• Losing 15 minutes per day of productivity from a single employee
  - 65 hours per year in lost productivity
  - Approximate savings of $1,200-$2,000
  (varies based on hourly rate)
• One employee uses a company gas card to fill their personal vehicle once a month
  - Monthly fuel savings of $70
  - Annual fuel savings of $840
  (varies based on fuel tank size and fuel cost)

The below sample cost savings and ROI is for a single employee. Your ROI will vary based on number of vehicles in your fleet, amount of miles driven and fuel consumption.

Gas savings	$2,200
Productivity gained	$2,000
Theft savings	$840
Total annual savings	$5,040
Safety Track’s first year cost	$587
First year ROI	9X

What is Fleet Tracking?

1. GPS Fleet Tracking Solutions

One of the main problems with modern economics is, of course, management. It can be difficult to manage the portions of a business that have a lot of individual components - a hotel chain, for example, or a line of busses. That difficulty also applies to companies like taxi or limousine fleets, which is why good businessmen should consider buying technological tools to aid them in that task and to help them get the most money and profit out of their rather significant investments.

2 . What is Fleet Tracking?

First, let’s talk about a specific section of the American economic scene – the transportation industry. More specifically, we’ll talk about the personal transportation industry. It’s not easy getting around these days, and becoming harder all the time. It’s for this reason that so many enterprising businessmen and women have caught onto the idea that people will pay good money to ferry passengers from one place to another. That, in a nutshell, is the goal of the modern taxi industry.

Now, there are a fair number of taxis out there. In some places, like New York City, they all operate under a single head – the famous Medallion or “yellow cabs” of the city. Sometimes, taxis are owned by individual drivers, and make money by picking up street fares. More common, though, especially in smaller communities, are the phone summon taxis that are run by taxi companies. The person needing a ride calls the taxi company, and the company dispatches a taxi to pick them up. These types of taxis – known as FHVs or For Hire Vehicles in the industry – are generally run under a single company manager and require a lot of management to be efficient.

That’s where fleet or vehicle tracking comes in. GPS fleet tracking solutions are available on the consumer marketplace for discerning businessmen and businesswomen to use for their own taxi fleets in order to determine what’s happening in their company and what happens where – important when it comes to doling out paychecks or dealing with insurance problems, things like broken down taxis or auto accidents may cause.

3 . Why Use GPS Fleet Tracking Solutions?

The first step in good management is knowing exactly what’s happening, how long it takes, how long it costs, and where it takes place. That’s especially difficult in a taxi fleet, as all those reports depend on individual drivers – whose personal interests may be at odds with your own. If you have a driver prone to laziness, for example, he or she may report more hours on their payroll than they are actually filling, thus depriving his or her fellow employees as well as the company as a whole of valuable profits. This can also give the company a bad name, which, again, hurts fellow employees as well as you or anyone else in upper management.

So what do GPS fleet tracking solutions do? Simple. They record and observe in an unobtrusive way. They mark times, fares, stops, fuel expenses, and even, if you choose, things like speed. Are you concerned that some of your employees may be using your vehicles to break traffic laws? GPS fleet tracking solutions let you keep an eye on locations and speed limits, letting you know how fast they’re going at all times. GPS systems can also help the driver, helping him or her get to where they need to be faster and more efficiently than simply relying on street maps and personal memory.

4 . Different Types of Vehicle Tracking

There are two main varieties when it comes to good fleet management software. These depend specifically on the type of information you need and the type of technology you want to include in your vehicles. This can also make a big difference in cost, so make sure you research your options extensively before settling on one or the other. Ask yourself if the extra features of any specific system are really worth the extra cost you’ll be paying for them.

In fact, educating yourself about the details of these systems is probably a good idea. Good GPS fleet tracking solutions or fleet maintenance software can cost a lot of money, and it shouldn’t be a bill lightly looked at. With luck, these systems will last a long time and be used for a lot of solutions, so you should treat them with utter seriousness when it comes time to buy – make sure you educate yourself about all your options and know beforehand what you want, and you’ll end up with the best possible solution for your money in the end.