Managing your company vehicles does not have to be a stressful task. There is a long list of things that you need to be monitoring as a business owner, and your company vehicles does not have to be one of them. The key to successful company fleet operations is self-sufficiency. If you utilize the right resources, you can have a company fleet that monitors itself. Here are the top 4 ways to manage your company vehicles.

1. Management Tools

There is a variety of software that can be easily added to your business to optimize your company vehicles. Things like delivery route efficiency, fuel economy monitoring, and driver safety software are low-cost ways to improve your company fleet. There is software that will track driving patterns, notifying you if an employee is accelerating quickly, taking their eyes off the road, or showing unsafe driving tendencies. A software like this is easy to find, and it only takes a quick google search of the best vehicle camera systems.  

2. Employee Incentives

Often, driver performance can be motivated by incentives. If you offer an incentive for the safest driving, your team members will be motivated to drive at optimal safety to earn the bonus or incentive. If you offer a raise for the fastest delivery times (while driving safely), you could lower your company delivery times and improve fuel efficiency. It is also very valuable to retain your company drivers. Ensuring that they feel valued is an important part of them wanting to stay with you and your company. Offer incentives to your team often, and you may notice an improvement in efficiency and morale.

3. Route Efficiency

If you are operating a delivery company, it is imperative that you have the best routes mapped out for your drivers. It is valuable to monitor trends in fuel efficiency and duration when your drivers go on trips. It is not efficient to send drivers on multi-day trips for little profit. Map out routes that can potentially encompass multiple deliveries in one. Also, be sure to utilize the properly sized vehicle for each trip. If your company is delivering a few, smaller supplies, it would be the most cost-efficient to use a cargo van over a larger vehicle.

4. Operating Costs

Monitoring your vehicle, delivery operating costs, and marking trends in numbers is a great way to improve efficiency. To move forward with an alternate, more efficient plan, you must be able to look at your company’s figures and see where improvements need to be made. If you just look at where other companies are improving, you won’t have a realistic idea of what will benefit your company. You want to look at things like fuel cost, driver wage, insurance, loan payments, and maintenance costs to get a panoramic view of what you are spending on vehicle operations. It may be more efficient for you to run these numbers, or to hire someone who can monitor these costs if you are not able to. This analysis may show you that you are spending too much money on fuel, which can lead you to the route optimization concept. This also applies if you are spending too much money on paying your drivers. You could consider route optimization to cut down the idle time and unnecessary travel. You may need to invest in new company vehicles if maintenance is eating away at your budget. Evaluating these cost figures is the best way to determine your next steps when it comes to improvement.

Ultimately, the more self-sufficient your company is, the more profitable it will be. This also reduces your personal stress as the company owner. Take the time to figure out the best ways to manage your company vehicles, and never be afraid of making necessary improvements. Initial investments can save you lots of money down the line. Make investments in optimization tools so that your business can run itself. Managing your company fleet can be one of the easiest parts of being a business owner if you use your resources.