As a fleet manager you have probably experienced an afternoon or evening when you were asking, “Truck 27, Where Are You?” You’ll never ask that question again when your trucks are equipped with mobile GPS. This simple device, installed in just seconds, allows a fleet manager to know the exact location, speed, and status of every truck you have on the road (and the ones in the garage).
From your central monitoring computer, you can track the movements of every truck all day. And when you arrive in the office in the morning, you can review the movements of any trucks overnight. Have you ever thought a particular truck was racking up far more mileage than it should? Would you like to be able to prove that two of your employees are using that truck every weekend as a moving van for their moonlighting business? With mobile GPS you can track where every vehicle has been driven since installation of the system.
Have you wondered why Truck 36 seems to take longer to reach local destinations than other trucks and drivers? With mobile GPS in the truck, you can prove that the drivers are taking the longest possible route to each destination and stopping at home for a very long lunch.
Or perhaps you think several of the trucks are using too much fuel for the miles they are putting on the odometer. Mobile GPS in the truck would tell you that they are meeting in the parking lot of an empty warehouse for card games every afternoon, leaving the trucks idling so nobody will know.
Mobile GPS will certainly provide all the ammunition you need to prove that you have a few slackers on your team or that your vehicles are being used after hours by some enterprising drivers. But there are also many positive results you can achieve with this technology. For example, by monitoring routes taken by your drivers, you can help them identify more fuel-efficient or faster routes. You can reduce fuel use and cost, reduce carbon emissions, and increase the productivity of these drivers.
Instead of walking the garage at the end of each driver’s run to note mileage and make other checks of the vehicle, you can automate the data cost savings gathering with a mobile GPS system. Then you can use that time to analyze the information and still get home in time for supper. As you analyze the information the system will gather about your vehicles and your drivers you will be able to reduce costs, improve driving safety and fuel-efficient driving habits, improve productivity, improve customer satisfaction, maintain vehicles more efficiently, extend the life of vehicles, and protect your drivers and your vehicles from theft and other dangers.
Consider, also, this very different benefit of a mobile GPS system in your fleet. At 10 am, you notice that the truck 12 is sitting on the side of the Interstate, but shows no indication of a vehicle problem. You assume the driver has pulled over to check something. You continue to monitor, noting that the truck has not moved at 11:30. You try to call your driver and he does not answer the phone. You continue to monitor and call until noon. By this time, you are concerned. Using your tracking system, you locate a truck returning to the garage that is about 10 miles beyond the location of truck 12. You call the driver and ask her to stop and check on truck 12. You continue to monitor the arrival of truck 16. Within a minute you receive a phone call from the driver of truck 16 informing you that the driver of truck 12 is in bad shape and appears to have suffered a stroke. She has called 911 and will accompany the driver of truck 12 to the hospital and remain there until his family arrives. You then call the driver’s wife, and take a van to deliver another driver to complete the run for truck 12, pick up the driver of truck 16 and take her back to her truck (unless she followed the ambulance with it), and return to the hospital to wait with the driver’s wife. Mobile GPS saves a life and keeps a delivery on schedule.