Standing out in the competitive market is, without a doubt, the great objective of every fleet manager. After all, their work encounters constant challenges, which need to be overcome in order to find balance in productivity, control and performance of vehicles and drivers.
Thus, managers become responsible for results in all areas involving the management of light fleets, such as fleet maintenance and availability control, operational efficiency, cost control and even the safety of their drivers.
Therefore, looking for measures and actions to gain greater control of the fleet is one of the most important obligations of the fleet manager, as this directly affects the company's results.
To help you, in this article we have listed the main challenges of a light fleet manager, as well as tips for enhance fleet control efficiently. Follow:
Increased fleet availability and reduced maintenance
Driver performance control
Fuel cost control
Create a fleet policy
Carry out driver training
Calculate the expense forecast
Plan and monitor routes
Using technology for better fleet control
Control challenges in light fleet management
Understand, below, some of the main challenges that light fleet managers face in their careers:
Driver identification
A very worrying problem in the management of light fleets is the lack of identification of drivers. This is because when there is any kind of problem with the vehicle, whether fines, cargo theft, high fuel consumption or any accident whatsoever, it is essential that the driver of the vehicle is identified.
After all, how to hold the offending driver accountable? How can you ensure good behavior in traffic if you don't know which drivers are not respecting the law?
Many of these questions need to be answered, mainly for light fleet management to take the necessary measures to, for example, reduce driver misconduct and increase road safety.
In this way, your drivers may be crashing their car or getting fined and your management will not be able to punish, educate and train them to improve.
To solve this problem, have a service Video telemetry is the best answer.
Golfleet Videotelemetry has facial recognition, video tracking and verbal coaching in fleet management, providing all the necessary technological apparatus to provide more agility and security in fleet management by combining artificial intelligence with other technologies.
Increased fleet availability and reduced maintenance
Stationary vehicles are not synonymous with productivity, quite the contrary. After all, if they keep crashing or giving problems, they can cause a wave of expenses that are harmful to the company's financial health.
To improve this problem, it is essential to have excellent training in safe and economical driving, capable of reducing damage to vehicles. Furthermore, prefer preventive maintenance is a must!, as solving problems before they get worse reduces costs significantly.
Read more: Difference between cost and expense? Know how to classify them
But, to be even more efficient in this regard, you can count on the Golfleet Systems Maintenance Add-on Module. With it, your fleet management has automatic vehicle overhaul plans, schedules, alerts, data and everything you need to have a complete overhaul.
With this, in addition to having greater control over the number of active cars in the company, fleet management is also able to direct vehicle maintenance to avoid further wear and tear.
Driver performance control
As you already know, a large part of the expenses in the management of light fleets is the result of the behavior of the drivers when driving. That is, if your drivers present a bad direction, your expenses with fuel, maintenance and claims will increase.
It is the role of the fleet manager to ensure that all its drivers respect traffic laws above all else, strictly follow the company's fleet policy and drive safely and economically.
Hence, more than identifying your driver, it is also necessary to accompany him. Thus, the Golfleet Telemetry system is a great highlight for this, with functionalities to monitor the behavior of its drivers with, for example, personalized alerts for:
- hard acceleration
- hard braking
- inappropriate curve
- Speeding
- Among others
Fuel cost control
Finally, but no less challenging, we have fuel cost control, another point that must be balanced in the management of light fleets. For this, it is essential that the manager has control of supply and consumption.
That is, it is necessary pay attention and prevent fraud when supplying, as well as actions that increase consumption of the input, such as route diversion and bad driving.
Read more: Fuel economy: 8 tips to reduce fleet expenses
Thus, in addition to the necessary actions to ensure economic conduction, the manager can also rely on the add-on of Supply Control Golfleet, present in all our software.
Through it, your fleet management will have personalized and complete reports:
| Cash spending indicators by: | Data filtered by period: | Fuel exception reports: |
| Average cost R$/Km Total expenditures Average R$/L consumption per segment Total consumption in Liters | Lowest amount paid per liter Total in BRL Total liters consumed | Stations without location no position divergent location Above average consumption Below average consumption |
Actions to improve fleet control
To further complement your successful management, we also separate some special solutions that can provide you with better results. Check it out:
Mapping your vehicles
It seems a bit obvious, however, many light fleet managers do not have a mapping of their vehicles and, if they do, they do not have the current status of the vehicle.
Knowledge about its vehicles and the conditions presented gives the company a more strategic and preparatory view to notice and deal with possible problems.
Create a fleet policy
The fleet policy is a document that standardizes behaviors, practices and actions for all drivers in the company's fleet. Thus, when all drivers comply with these guidelines, it is easier to obtain better results on a constant basis, mainly in reducing costs and safety.
So, with the golfleet services, it is possible to count on the Fleet Policy module, which, when assigning the vehicles and configuring the company's rules, allows the manager to determine what are infractions in his operation, while the system sends automatic commands to the equipment.
Carry out driver training
Different from what is thought, training involving drivers goes far beyond driving practices. Absolutely, it is essential that drivers know how to practice defensive driving and how to take care of the vehicle.
But it is also necessary for drivers to know how to maintain a healthy diet on the road, how best to prepare meals for long hours of work, medicines that should be avoided while driving and be aware of all fleet policy rules.
Calculate the expense forecast
If you manage to establish the consumption values per kilometer of the vehicles and the average cost of preventive maintenance for each one, the time has come to do the expense forecast calculation.
After all, with all this data in hand, available in the modules of the Golfleet Telemetry, you can predict possibilities of an average amount of expenses for the coming months, allowing you to make more accurate decisions regarding the fleet management budget.
Plan and monitor routes
Planning, nothing more than the choice of route made by the driver, an important step since the fastest route is not always the safest or with the best conditions.
Monitoring, on the other hand, can be done with technologies such as Tracking e Golfleet Telemetry. With them, you know where your vehicles are, who they are with and the main information about the driver's direction.
Read more: Fleet management: prepare a good plan for 2023
Using technology to improve fleet control
Finally, I think it was already possible to understand the importance of technology and its great role in obtaining excellent results in fleet management light. With it, everything can be enhanced, optimized and even monitored.
Find out more about Golfleet solutions and understand how they are able to maximize results, whether in reducing costs, increasing productivity, and much more:
