Fleet management involves many different and complex activities including monitoring drivers, planning pick-up and drop-offs, managing operating costs, scheduling vehicle maintenance, and much more. Fleet managers often find it extremely difficult to manage these activities seamlessly and this is why they need an efficient fleet management system.
A fleet management solution or system may be defined as an application capable of managing and coordinating all fleet management tasks within a central system. It not only enables fleets to enhance productivity but also minimises costs.
A typical fleet management solution comes equipped with GPS tracking functions and allows users to collect, monitor, analyse, and store data. On the other hand, advanced systems can make predictions about key factors such as routes, ETAs, etc.
Discussed below are the most important features that you should look for while choosing a fleet management solution.
- Real-time tracking is one of the must-haves of a fleet management system. This feature allows fleet managers to find out the locations and activities of the drivers in real time. By integrating GPS tracking with a driver mobile app, order statuses can also be tracked in real time.
- While managing large delivery volumes, efficient scheduling is a critical requirement. Automatic scheduling and despatching features make it possible to find out the most suitable equipment, vehicle, and driver for each delivery job.
- It is important for fleets to maximise the time and capacity of their drivers on a daily basis. With the route optimisation feature, it is possible to find out routes that are the fastest and most cost-effective. This is done based on different factors including the skill and speed of the drivers, historical traffic patterns, etc.
- In addition to productivity, fleet managers and operators also need to ensure compliance with government regulations and the safety of their drivers. Therefore, it is useful to have fleet management solutions with alerts for driver behaviours that are unsafe or problematic.
Some other Points to Consider
With innumerable options available in the market, here are a few additional factors to help you make the right choice.
- To find out the features that you need the most, try to identify the pain points of your fleet operations. It could be high driver attrition, excessive consumption or wastage of fuel, excessive idling, or something else. Once you know the areas you need to fix, it is much easier to identify the features you need.
- For those handling larger fleets, there is a common perception that the maximum number of features is required. However, ideally, they should look for fleet management solutions that can be used by a large number of people without difficulty. Though it is unwise to choose a system with limited features, it is advisable to avoid features that are superfluous for the current fleet operations.
- During the trial period, don’t forget to check the reliability, speed, and robustness of the system. There is no point in choosing a feature-packed solution that crashes regularly or lags all the time.
- Keeping your long-term goals in mind, check the scalability and upgrades because changing the system after a few years can be an expensive affair.
If you are looking for a highly reliable and efficient fleet management system, please get in touch with us at ShockWatch.
