GPS tracking: Optimize fleet efficiency, lower risk exposure, improve customer service

GPS – the Global Positioning System – is a global public service provided by the U.S. government. The availability and accuracy of GPS is a key component of today’s latest fleet management services such as WEX Telematics, a product for organizations that manage multiple vehicles. These services can increase efficiency and safety for organizations that manage a remote workforce and multiple vehicles and assets. Fleets of all sizes use these tools daily to track the utilization of their vital assets as they are used to serve customers and derive revenue. Today, many organizations rely on fleet tracking services to measure and improve operating efficiency, lower exposure to risk, and improve customer service levels.Telematics applications, also known as fleet tracking systems, can help business owners like you keep in touch with your drivers and vehicles in near real time from your PC or mobile device. These tools will allow you to track your drivers’ performance to ensure your critical assets are being used productively. Drivers’ speeding events, idle time, and fuel purchases may help drive cost and risk out of your operations. You can also use landmark features to identify key customers or locations on a digital map. This feature will allow you to track drivers’ engagement within these landmarks. These tools can help monitor customer service time or notify when an asset leaves a landmark.

Amplify and simplify insights in one platform

GPS tracking increases efficiency and safety for your drivers

GPS tracking from WEX shows all of your critical assets within one application. Additionally, its integrated fuel transactions feature enhances analytic reporting. You will receive insights about critical rule violations like fuel fraud, excessive speeding, idling, or aggressive or unnecessary driving. WEX Telematics premium GPS services also allows for alerts via email or text message for the most important insights like potential accidents, landmark violations, or aggressive driving.

By pairing premium GPS vehicle tracking with a dashboard camera, you can identify risky or dangerous situations your drivers encounter daily. A quality dash camera integrates seamlessly into a fleet management system. This way you can create video evidence to help you coach and protect your drivers. By doing so, you can:

• Measure driver performance to recognize high performers and coach appropriately.
• Use video to help assess liability in the event of an accident.
• Identify distracted driving and aggressive driving with video to help coach your teams.
• Notify your insurance company and discuss options to lower your insurance premiums.

Tailor your operations for customers

Are you measuring the time to serve existing customers? Do you want to serve them more or less frequently? Do you want to use different drivers and/or vehicles for certain customers? By using GPS tracking to monitor drivers, you can better understand how you are serving your customers and look at ways to improve.

Have you ever received a call from a customer questioning the services provided by your company’s representatives? By using a fleet tracking service, you will have a record of the time spent at a particular customer by tracking the drivers, vehicles, and other assets. This will allow you to measure the cost to serve and also assess if more or fewer resources should be allocated.  Ever received a customer call while you were in the field?  WEX Telematics provides tools to see where your drivers are in near real time and allocate resources immediately. This can help drive customer success levels higher by reacting faster and more efficiently.

In these scenarios, you can visualize how GPS tracking gives you the ability to manage  your team and vital assets in a manner which will increase accountability and efficiency. By understanding your fleet’s movements, you can also increase customer satisfaction. With GPS tracking from WEX, you can determine how often you have served a customer in the last week, month, quarter, or year.

Increase fleet utilization and efficiency

With the ability to track each one of your vehicles, you can look at your overall fleet utilization to develop operational efficiencies. Are you sending the right vehicle to the right customers or sites? Do you have the right vehicle assigned to the right task for load and distance? What is the best way to get that equipment to that site?

Once you analyze the data of the vehicle movements on the GPS tracker, you can then start to fine-tune how you are running operations. By optimizing dispatch and travel routes for each vehicle, you can become more efficient, deliver more goods and services on time, and reduce your overall fuel spend. You can also analyze your entire fleet of vehicles to better understand if you have the right vehicles for your business operations.

Transition to electric vehicles (EVs)

The vehicle utilization tools and features within a proven GPS tracking solution can help fleet managers decide if switching to electric vehicles (EVs) will bring any advantages to their business. By evaluating your current inventory of vehicles, and how each is used for your business operations, the tools and features can help determine and recommend which ones can be replaced to improve fleet operations and costs.

These data-driven recommendations provide a clearer understanding of your fleet’s electrification potential. Here are some questions to ask when considering the feasibility of switching to EVs:

• Will EVs improve fleet operations or reduce costs?
• Which vehicles could be replaced?
• Do I have enough charging stations in my landscape?
• Are my vehicles coming back to the central hub?
• Are drivers typically putting 200 or less miles on that vehicle on a given day?
• Can an EV handle the job required?
• What is the financial impact and lifetime cost of switching to one or more EVs?
• How much will greenhouse gas emissions be reduced?

As fleets begin to electrify, fleet managers must navigate a complicated set of technologies and regulations. WEX helps you keep moving by offering seamless ways to incorporate EVs into your fleet.

Receive insights that make a difference

With GPS tracking from a tool like WEX’s, you’ll get a powerful analytics platform that helps you run your most efficient fleet by measuring customer service levels as well as identifying overall risk and unnecessary spend. The most commonly used reports and alerts our customers use are as follows:

• Activity Detail Report gives a daily snapshot of driving activity for every vehicle to see locations, stops, and speeds driven.
• Safety Alerts can alert you when drivers are speeding, working odd hours, or have long idling times during a certain time period. They also provide geofence alerts in areas you choose.
• Landmark Report documents stops at various landmarks including company headquarters, customer sites, and drivers’ homes.
• Vehicle Utilization Summary provides daily and weekly statistics on the fleet including total mileage by vehicle. Use this to ensure you are matching the right vehicle and driver to the right job.
• Fuel Usage and MPG Report compares the fuel usage and miles per gallon of each vehicle to monitor and reconcile against fuel card expenses.
• Vehicle Maintenance Service Reports will ensure that all of your vehicles are routinely serviced and monitor the cost of maintenance.
• Idle Time Report identifies vehicles with excessive idle times and vehicle stops – location and duration.

To learn more about how you can optimize fleet routes, reduce fraud, and save money with WEX, please visit the company’s About WEX page.

WEX is a leading, global fintech solutions provider, simplifying payments and back-end business processes in the fleet management, benefits management, and corporate payments areas. To learn more, please visit the company’s About WEX page.

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Sources:
GPS.gov
Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration