Owning a vehicle fleet is a major company asset, but optimizing your fleet operations can add even more value to that asset. Otherwise, your fleet can easily “idle away” without reaching your company’s optimal goals for work productivity and cost savings—and not just by literally idling and wasting fuel.

What can a fleet management solution do?

Fleet management software systems allow business owners and fleet managers to reduce or remove any driver behavior or procedure that is detrimental to fleet efficiency. You’ll have the ability to eliminate actions like idling or other behaviors that needlessly burn up fuel. Vehicle tracking improves fleet efficiency and reduces cost of operations while also offering a range of functions depending on the type of vehicles managed.

Here are potential aspects of fleet management that can be enhanced by a fully implemented fleet tracking solution:

• Maintenance scheduling
• Data tracking
• Driver safety
• Monitoring powered assets
• Speed management
• Finances
• Fuel tracking

In this article, we’ll dive deeper into how fleet tracking works and what it can do for your business.

How do GPS fleet tracking and management systems work?

While comprehensive fleet solutions have the ability to track a lot more than location data, GPS fleet tracking is a fundamental aspect of successful fleet management. GPS-based tracking solutions include physical GPS hardware that is placed inside the vehicle and may utilize GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) or cellular triangulation.

Functioning with the hardware component is the software system governing and managing the coordinate data. Depending on the type of software provided, GPS tracking data may be viewed and managed from a desktop computer, but ideally, it should also be accessible on-the-go via a tablet or other mobile device such as a smartphone. For example, the SkyBitz Local Fleets solution is comprised of intelligent GPS tracking devices that deliver real-time actionable information to a cloud-based platform.

You can utilize GPS tracking software to see vehicle locations in real time with a map overlay, allowing for quick response decisions based on coordinate data.

Also, Power Take-Off (PTO) monitoring allows you to bill for the exact hours of use whether you’re renting out equipment or utilizing it at a job site. Fleet tracking solutions can include PTO for monitoring powered assets so you know when equipment is being used and when it’s just idling.

What are the possibilities when GPS tracking hardware and software combine?

The possibilities emerging from GPS-equipped vehicles do not stop at pinpointing a location. A variety of specific tasks may be accomplished with the appropriate GPS fleet tracking software solution, including:

• Employee driving behavior and trip profiling: Fleet managers can access comprehensive information about where drivers go and how they drive. This allows you to get a full picture of each driver’s behavior and determine whether any employees are violating rules by engaging in unsafe driver practices like speeding—or if they are wasting fuel by idling too long. You can also see an overview of what routes drivers are taking and easily spot where trips could be rerouted to be more efficient.

• Remote control features such as vehicle disabling or geo-fencing: These features enable you to act quickly to avoid liabilities from unauthorized use of your fleet vehicles. Geo-fencing allows you to set a virtual barrier that your vehicles cannot go beyond, and remote vehicle disabling makes it possible to prevent a thief turning on the ignition. You can keep a close eye from any distance with GPS vehicle tracking.

• Logging events in real time: While you’re focusing on your business, fleet tracking software works to gather location and Power Take-Off data and crunches the numbers in real time. It gives you usage reports so you can identify trends in your operations because accurate data is key to making decisions that increase your profitability.

Your choice of a vehicle fleet management solution has great potential to transform the way you run your business. A well-implemented system requires seamless hardware and software integration, along with the desire to save money, increase productivity, and maintain HOS (hours of service) compliance. If your fleet is idling away, the right fleet tracking software system can help get it back on track!