Fleet management professionals are constantly on the lookout for new techniques, technologies and systems that could potentially reduce fuel expenditure. Even with the most advanced fleet management systems in the world, however, at the end of the day, the biggest influence on fuel consumption is the driver.
One of the most effective methods for motivating drivers to use fuel as efficiently as possible is to introduce some healthy competition to the equation. League tables can be used to score each driver’s performance and fuel consumption on a monthly basis, motivating them to perform better than their co-workers. The system has been implemented with great success by several major fleet management operators in the UK.
GeoPost UK is a major courier company with next day delivery track and trace facilities in the UK and Europe. The company has been using a league table approach for the past four years and has seen a five percent improvement in miles per gallon.
Geopost is not alone in its findings; Morrison Utility Services (MUS) has been using a league table approach for the past year to drive its fleet’s fuel costs down. The company has benefitted from a ten percent improvement in fuel economy as a result.
The initial setup of a league table for drivers can be a labour intensive and time consuming task, but the potential savings most certainly justify the effort. What’s more, companies with established fleet management systems would be able to use telematics data showing fuel usage to rate each driver.
Each company would need to devise a system to make competition fair for each driver operating a different vehicle, under different circumstances. GeoPost has a fuel management system which measures fuel consumption, and Charlie Shiels, executive director of central operations, says common sense is needed when comparing regions. “You can’t compare a depot in the West End of London to a depot in the Norfolk Broads.” He also points out that devising a league table system and implementing it is just the beginning, saying; “It is important to communicate with drivers who are ‘bottom of the league’ and put them through driver training, if necessary”.
Creating a competitive atmosphere in a company is clearly an excellent approach to motivating drivers to use fuel as sparingly as possible and to educate themselves and adhere to the fleet management systems that they need to work with.
