What Are The Benefits Of GPS Tracking For My Fleet Of Vans?
Sep 8, 2023•5m
With skyrocketing customer expectations for deliveries, managing your fleet of vans requires a closer eye than ever before. Monitoring your vans with a vehicle tracking solution increases visibility and control to optimize usage rates and minimize costs while improving driver safety in any size of fleet.
Fortunately, adding a GPS tracking system to your existing management processes for your fleet of vans is quick and easy. Your team will intuitively understand GPS tracking, and you’ll quickly see the benefits of having access to real-time information.
Cutting Van Fuel Costs
Many van fleets find the reduced van fuel costs quickly offset the investment in the GPS tracking system. Eliminate unnecessary fuel consumption by monitoring driver activity with vehicle tracking.
Real-time reports and journey replays provide the details of a van’s journey. Management can examine accurate, detailed data about speed, braking, idling, acceleration, and stops. You have evidence of less-than-optimal driving styles that result in unnecessary fuel consumption and higher fuel costs.
With these detailed reports, management can communicate with drivers to help them improve their driving and offer specific training as required.
According to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), aggressive driving, like rapid acceleration, speeding, and sudden braking, wastes fuel. Using a GPS tracking system to monitor and adjust driver behaviors, you could increase gas mileage by 15% to 30% on the highway and 10% to 40% in town.
Reducing the Risk of Accidents
Tracking devices act as a deterrent for risky driver behaviors. Drivers tend to act more responsibly when they know the GPS tracking system generates a detailed report about their journey. Drivers become less inclined to speed and tend to implement best practices more consistently, reducing the risk of accidents.
A journey replay report identifies when drivers are not driving safely, giving management the information needed to apply disciplinary measures and extra training.
GPS tracking systems automatically send you an alert for aggressive driving behaviors, so you can contact drivers to eliminate the issues.
Improving Routing
When your GPS tracking locates every vehicle in the fleet of vans with precision, your dispatchers can manage routing more efficiently. Ensure the vans take the most direct route to the destination to save both time and fuel.
Optimize routes to avoid roadwork and traffic jams when the van GPS tracker recommends routes. Vans arrive at the destination more quickly, with lower fuel costs.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology published a study outlining the number of hours of driving time using GPS.
“We estimate that GPS-enabled [location-based service] LBS helped U.S. consumers save 2.3 billion driving hours... This is the product of 65 billion driving hours, an 11% reduction in travel time.”More effective dispatching on more direct routes means less wasted time and significant fuel savings with a GPS vehicle tracking system.Vehicle Maintenance Scheduling with Fleet GPS Tracking
Often a surprising benefit of a vehicle tracking solution for van fleet owners is the ability to keep the vehicle maintenance schedule more effectively.
Properly maintained vans can be up to 35% more fuel efficient. Yet many fleet managers still rely on drivers to maintain the vans or to notify the company when maintenance is required. Paper and spreadsheet-based maintenance schedules require extensive manual input, risking input errors. Plus, papers and spreadsheets do not track the van’s mileage.
Fleet GPS tracking devices send automatic alerts when the vans require maintenance. Fleet managers choose mileage settings for oil and tires, tune-ups, and scheduled service. This virtually eliminates manual recordkeeping.
Controlling Van Misuse with a Fleet GPS Tracker
Misuse of fleet vans is estimated to increase fuel consumption by over 20%. Drivers use vans for personal errands during on and off hours.
Receive alerts when vans are driven during off hours to eliminate moonlighting and ensure company resources are only used for company-oriented tasks.
Preventing Van Theft with a GPS Tracker
The National Insurance Crime Bureau’s (NICB) Hot Spots report shows that overall, “there were 880,595 vehicle thefts nationwide in 2020, about one stolen vehicle every 36 seconds, up from 794,019 in 2019.”
Estimates suggest that up to half of all tradespeople have had tools stolen from their van at least once.
Fortunately, a van GPS tracker works as an excellent theft-prevention tool. Van stickers deter thieves as they know they will likely be caught.
With the remote immobilization option, vans will not start when the wrong person turns on the ignition. Add that to geo-fence alerts notifying you when a van enters or exits somewhere it shouldn’t, and a GPS tracker is an excellent solution for preventing van theft.
Increasing Fleet and Business Productivity
A GPS vehicle tracking solution improves efficiency with streamlined reporting, timecard verification, and location verification.
Reduce inefficiencies in payroll by eliminating manual inputs for quick, accurate results. Historical data reports of costs provide a precise estimate for quotes and job planning.
Controlling Van Misuse with a Fleet GPS Tracker
It’s no wonder that one of the benefits of GPS tracking for a fleet of vans includes lower insurance premiums. Insurers know that with an accurate GPS tracking system, your vans have less risk of theft, and your drivers will drive more safely, making it less likely you’ll make a claim.
This lowered risk also means your fleet and drivers stay on the road.
Conclusion
One Step GPS can help your business maximize the efficiency of your fleet of vans, reduce fuel costs, and improve safety. Book a demo today.Author
Mykael Korpash
Fleet and Tech writer
Reviewed by
Nico Photos
Customer Insights Manager
Adam Ben Jacob
Director of Support and Technology
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Author
Mykael Korpash
Fleet and Tech writer
Mykael writes on all things fleet and tech for One Step GPS. She has a nuanced knowledge of actual user experiences with fleet tracking software and of modern fleet issues and covers the most important topics in the space.
Reviewed by
Nico Photos
Customer Insights Manager
Nico is obsessed with how One Step GPS customers use and derive value from our platform and devices. He regularly conducts interviews with fleets of all shapes and sizes to document the problems they're facing, their needs, and the tools and solutions that help make their lives easier.
Adam Ben Jacob
Director of Support and Technology
Adam oversees the Customer Success Department of One Step GPS, a department that serves over 20,000 customer fleets at this moment. His breadth of knowledge is unmatched, and Adam's unique insight into the inner workings of fleets and fleet tracking brings value found nowhere else in the industry.