When you operate in an industry that requires managing a company’s fleet, you already know how challenging it can be at times.
It’s either a breakdown or an accident involving a vehicle or feeling like you’re at the breaking point with fuel prices going high.
However, there are fleet fuel management tips and techniques to help you reduce unnecessary expenses. Some common techniques include overseeing fleet fuel usage and optimizing vehicle use and maintenance.
If your business is consistently troubled by fluctuating fleet fuel prices, you can develop solutions to mitigate these challenges.
6 Ways to Manage Fleet Fuel Cost
Through this article, we have shared six different strategies for managing fleet fuel pricing.
1) Choose The Right Vehicles
The first step in trying the fleet fuel card is choosing the right vehicle.
However, it’s essential to understand what a company means by the term ‘fleet’. It can be translated into various types of vehicles for commercial use by different companies.
When you’re running an efficient fleet, it starts with knowing and using the right type of vehicle for your needs.
It should always start by making a detailed assessment of the business vehicle you’re acquiring and using.
In general, you’ll typically need a smaller vehicle that’s more fuel-efficient. But it’s also necessary to keep in mind that the hauling capacity should be at its maximum for that type of vehicle.
Ideally, it’s best to do this assessment before you acquire a fleet. However, if there’s already a fleet, think if it makes any economic sense to switch vehicles.
You must also see if you have any chance of improving efficiency by expanding or downsizing the total number of vehicles you operate.
2) Optimize Your Vehicles
Well, if choosing the right vehicle for your fleet helps you manage the cost, taking care of them lets you optimize further.
It’s important to optimize the vehicle and keep it at an optimum level of efficiency if you want a better fuel economy in return.
A simple yet crucial thing to consider is the air pressure in the tire. Ensure that your vehicle’s tires are properly inflated to improve fuel efficiency.
In fact, keeping the vehicle’s tires inflated helps improve fuel economy significantly.
So, when you optimize your existing fleet, you’ll get better mileage as a result and lower your expenses on the fleet fuel cards.
It helps to maintain routine checks on vehicles’ fuel efficiency. In fact, lighter vehicles always get better mileage.
3) Maintain Your Fleet
Again, the solution comes down to maintenance. When we talk about the routine inspection of the vehicle’s tires, we mustn’t forget about the other aspects of the vehicle.
It means taking care of day-to-day maintenance, routine checking of the engine, brakes, and so on.
Sometimes, clogged filters reduce air and fuel flow. When you use the wrong grade of oil, it puts extra strain on the engine, especially during cold weather.
So, when the car has an improperly maintained cooling system, that forces the engine to work harder. As a result, the car ends up using more energy, and more fuel is burnt in the process.
When you ensure that your fleet vehicles are getting in-time maintenance, it will yield better fuel cost savings.
4. Good Driving Habits
The mileage any given vehicle gets also depends on how the driver handles it.
When driving inefficiently, habits can lead a driver to waste their fuel and, therefore, waste their expenses.
To maintain proper fuel economy in a car, it’s essential for the fleet owner to test prospective drivers before hiring them. As a fleet owner, you can oversee if they have good driving habits to maintain better vehicle health and road practices.
However, when someone has a bad driving habit, it’s challenging to help them unlearn it and adopt good habits.
You can see if your drivers are capable of practicing habits such as:
- Not leaving the car idling.
- Their use of cruise control.
- Their skills to make smooth stops and starts.
- Letting off the fuel can also affect the driving habits.
5. Picking Better Routes
Another strategy that can improve the overall fuel economy management of a fleet is route selection. Whether you’re in a logistic service or the trucking business, it’s critical to choose the routes that help maintain fuel economy.
For better fuel management, you must keep in touch with your drivers when they are out on the road. This way, you can guide them along shorter and smoother routes.
You can also update them on different things like new jobs or changes in scheduling. If there are new jobs or changes in schedules or routes, having seamless communication can help you facilitate better ride optimization.
In case of traffic or other hurdles on the way, they might be able to change courses and stay on track with the task while also ensuring better fuel management
6. Fleet Fuel Cards
Well, this is, in fact, the best method for saving your money on fuel costs. When heading a fleet as a business, it’s critical to maintain fleet fuel cards to access timely discounts.
Also, based on your card choices fleet fuel cards, you can access different percentages of discounts and rebates. What’s more, these benefits and discounts keep increasing as you keep using your card.
Also, with fleet credit cards, you can simplify the administrative task of tracking your fuel expenses. So, you can start by centralizing transactions that eliminate the need to save and collect receipts.
Conclusion
Another way to keep track of your fuel expenses is to know the right day for a refill. Especially when you’re handling a fleet, you’ll need gallons of fuel, and the fuel price goes down on specific days. It’s thoughtful to refill on those days to minimize cost on fuel expenses.
However, the tips shared in this article should be helpful when it comes to reducing expenses on the overall fleet of fuel. Let us know what’s your favorite technique for managing fleet fuel expenses.
Read more:
6 Tips for Improving Fleet Fuel Management