Fleet maintenance is essential for keeping trucks rolling. But as fleet managers know, vehicle health is just one factor in fleet efficiency.
True operational efficiency requires alignment between every team — dispatch, accounting, fleet managers, and drivers — and access to data that helps you improve performance. In this post, we’ll explain how fleet managers can improve fleet efficiency, control costs, and use fleet management software to reduce manual admin tasks.
Main Barriers to Fleet Efficiency
So, what interferes with fleet efficiency? Traffic conditions? Harsh braking? Surprise roadside inspections? Usually, fleet inefficiency begins not on the road, but in your operations center.
Here’s a look at some of the common causes of inefficiencies:
Process Bottlenecks
Finalizing freight contracts and matching loads with the right vehicles and drivers can create costly delays, especially for carriers that rely on phone calls, emails, and faxes to do business.
Dispatchers often have to jump back and forth between dispatch systems, make freight-matching decisions based on instinct instead of data, and ensure drivers have the documentation they need. It’s a lot to manage, especially for growing fleets.
Accounting Delays
With a fleet running efficiently, you might expect to make more money, but even when every delivery is on time, a clunky accounting process can increase DSO and disrupt cash flow. If you have to wait for a driver to provide delivery documentation to the dispatcher, who then sends it to accounting for reconciliation, your invoices might not reach customers for a week or more.
Maintenance Management Overload
Fleet managers know regular maintenance is important for keeping trucks rolling and reducing vehicle downtime, but maintenance scheduling is a time-consuming task. When you try to manage fleet maintenance manually in a spreadsheet, you might miss scheduled maintenance dates, forget to document vehicle maintenance, or track vehicle wear to prevent breakdowns.
Lack of Fleet Data
Fleet managers can’t increase operational efficiency if they don’t know what problems to fix. For example, without detailed, actionable data, there’s no way to know if a late delivery was the result of miscommunication, driver behavior, or some other factor.
How to Improve Fleet Efficiency With Software
To manage all fleet vehicles, control operational costs, and monitor drivers, fleet managers need help. But when you’re already short on time (and possibly budget), hiring an assistant isn’t a solution. The good news is that transportation management software can provide the support fleet managers need.
Here’s how a TMS improves fleet management:
Optimized Dispatching
A TMS includes a single centralized platform for managing all dispatching tasks. The software can automatically assign vehicles, match them with drivers based on their availability and credentials, and send digital delivery documents to drivers.
Automated Maintenance Scheduling
With a TMS, you can automate fleet maintenance service reminders, track fleet maintenance costs, and accurately project vehicle maintenance expenses based on mileage and vehicle age. And with everyone working in the same system, a dispatcher doesn’t need to check fleet maintenance records — if a truck isn’t ready to roll, the TMS won’t allow dispatchers to schedule it for a load. That feature ensures your trucks are DOT-compliant.
A TMS stores detailed data for all fleet vehicles and can calculate vehicle depreciation cost as well as the operating costs for every truck. With that information, fleet managers can better determine when to retire or replace vehicles.
Faster Invoicing
A TMS for carriers includes accounting features specifically for trucking, like invoice templates with fields for IFTA calculations, freight weights, and surcharges. Some transportation management software (PCS, for example) also includes electronic bills of lading and a driver mobile app that captures instant proof of delivery. With the ability to get immediate documentation and generate invoices automatically, carriers can shave days off their average DSO.
Real-Time GPS Tracking
GPS tracking integrates with electronic logging devices, giving fleet managers real-time info on driver locations and hours of service time. You can monitor driver behavior, reroute vehicles to avoid traffic, and ensure drivers stay compliant with HOS rules.
A TMS with GPS tracking integration offers a benefit for drivers, too: fewer interruptions. Dispatchers can see driver locations and don’t have to call them for status updates. Less interruption is important for driver safety.
Reporting and Analytics
To improve fleet efficiency, you need a way to measure fleet performance, processes, and costs. A TMS collects data on every aspect of fleet operations, such as fuel consumption, customer satisfaction, labor costs, maintenance costs, vehicle utilization, and driver behavior. Of course, that data is only helpful if you can make sense of it all. With PCS TMS for Carriers, you don’t need to be a data scientist to understand your fleet efficiency data.
PCS includes hundreds of report templates that show you the data you need for fleet optimization, in a user-friendly format. You can easily see:
- Profitability by load, vehicle, driver, and other factors.
- Detailed safety and compliance metrics.
- Costs of insurance premiums, fuel consumption, and training drivers.
With all of your fleet data in a centralized platform, you can produce compliance documentation with almost no effort, so you’ll always be prepared for inspections and audits.
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PCS Customer Success Story: Bluegrass Transport
PCS customer Bluegrass Transport switched to a competitor TMS after a 12-year partnership with PCS. But they returned to PCS almost immediately. The competitor’s product was too difficult to use, lacked accounting features, and came with little technical support.
Bluegrass has gotten great results from PCS that include a nearly 97% OTD rate and the ability to scale up from 40 to 60+ trucks within one year. And there are many other success stories that demonstrate why PCS is the best TMS for carriers.
Improve Fleet Operations With PCS
Improving fleet efficiency is a process that requires continuous oversight. Let PCS TMS for Carriers do the heavy lifting for you, and you can improve fleet performance and profitability in less time.
Ready to see what PCS can do for your fleet operations? Request your personalized demo today!
