Keeping dozens or even hundreds of trucks on the road is no easy task. As a fleet operator, you’ll know how many moving parts you have to coordinate in order to avoid wastage and losses – and all the disruption that one single delay can cause to your just-in-time planning. As such, any tricks you can onboard in order to reduce the costs of operating your fleet could end up saving you hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. Here are the top three suggestions for reducing fleet operating costs in 2022.
Train and Retrain
Your drivers are hugely important. With driverless trucks still over a decade away by most estimates, these human drivers are going to remain at the center of your value chain for years to come. And so, you ought to invest in them, in order to keep the best drivers delivering for your firm, and in order to help them avoid accidents that can cost your first in repairs and delays.
Consider enrolling your staff on a fleet driver coaching program in order to get them up to scratch with the very best safety training advice. You never know when the lessons they’ll take from such a program could help save you a collision and its associated costs. Plus, training helps your drivers feel valued and invested in over the long term.
Fuel Efficiency
Next up is the efficiency of your fuel use. If you’re running trucks all over the country, you’ll be burning through gallons upon gallons of gas every single day. The way that your drivers conserve gas – and the routes you ask them to take – will help you save on this key overhead.
And there are several things that you can do to increase your truck drivers’ fuel efficiency. You can ask them to take a course in careful, sensible driving. You can schedule routes so that your drivers are entering destination ports during the nighttime, when there are fewer cars on the roads. And you can, of course, over time, invest in more fuel-efficient vehicles, which will be an investment that’ll return you cash over the months and years to come.
Software
Finally, planning your shipping logistics as a fleet can be a complete nightmare. There are so many variables at play, especially if you’re the kind of company that’s engaging in ports, which are currently snarled up in their own supply chain struggles. All delayed delivery equal docked fees and fines – so getting your efficiency right is important for saving cash.
And software is being continually developed to help firms plan their fleet’s operations better. You likely use some form of software at the moment to keep track of your fleet – but with more accurate sensors, internet of things devices, and real-time tracking, this software is now highly sophisticated and can help you optimize your shipping schedule over the coming months.
Make these three key changes to your fleet operations management in order to reduce costs, save cash, and ultimately pocket more in profits.