Managing a fleet is both challenging and necessary to ensure a smooth flow in operations, and optimize your business’s service level. Hence, it’s no coincidence that fleet Telematics and driver management tools are becoming so popular among fleet owners. And, why wouldn’t they, after all? When it comes to vehicle management, these are essential tools; not only for improving fleet safety and reducing costs, but also for making your business successful.
Without question, an integrated vehicle management platform provides all the tools you need to manage your fleet; be it cars, vans, trailers, trucks, or other heavy vehicles. Additionally, it offers a list of various features, which you can implement to manage your employees more effectively.
Why use driver management tools?
To begin with, using cutting-edge technology to monitor your fleet drivers can save your company thousands of dollars, every year.
To help in this endeavor, a fleet Telematics platform offers a real-time overview of all vehicles and drivers; thus, using its driver management tools accordingly, you will be able to record driving behavior and compliance. Then, implement those valuable metrics into your management, to increase productivity, operational efficiency and, consequently, decrease costs.
Apart from driving habits and vehicle location, you can look into fuel consumption, overall vehicle status, scheduled maintenance, and more. To go a step further, you can create a suitable driver training program to educate your drivers in defensive driving; surely, it will keep them, and other people, safe on the road.
In a nutshell, using driver management tools to monitor, analyze, and implement, will help you:
- save on operational costs
- optimize the utilization of fleet assets
- enhance vehicles and cargo security
- secure drivers’ safety
- boost drivers’ performance and productivity
- increase customer satisfaction
- improve driver retention
With regard to the latter, the truth is, good drivers are hard to find; making the most of such management tools will improve your driver retention rate. For starters, if you happen to have a few of them among your crew, acknowledge their efforts and reward them. Besides, this will motivate the rest of your drivers to practice safe and economical driving, as well.
Veturilo: 6 key driver management tools to streamline your operations
As we’ve already mentioned, implementing a fleet monitoring system will give you access to several driver management tools. Using them will allow you to maintain a good understanding of your drivers’ driving behavior patterns; and how they progress, productivity-wise. At any rate, you’ll acquire a plethora of insights, which you can deploy to your fleet’s benefit.
A vehicle management system like Veturilo, will automatically upload vital data regarding your fleet, to your screen. By logging in to your dashboard from any device, you’ll be able to receive alerts and notifications on drivers and vehicles; this means, you can act proactively to prevent precarious situations, and eventually, identify areas to further improve.
So, let’s see some key driver management tools you can use to improve driver safety, and lower fleet costs.
1. Real-time location of your fleet vehicles on the map
- Know the exact location of your fleet vehicles on the map, whether they’re moving, or are parked.
- Get alerts in real-time.
- Save snapshots of your vehicles’ status and share their locations.
- Likewise, you could estimate the time for a vehicle’s arrival, based on relevant data, and share with customers.
2. Status alerts and notifications for your fleet vehicles’ status
Get alerts and notifications for events that have to do with the status of your fleet vehicles, such as:
With this data in your hands, you can make predictions regarding imminent undesirable incidents; thus, you can instruct your drivers to take action, and thwart hazardous situations.
3. Alerts related to unexpected external events
- Get alerts whenever a vehicle from your fleet is being towed.
- Similarly, get notified if a vehicle was involved in an accident.
4. Health alerts for all fleet vehicles
You’ll get data about all Powertrain (Engine & Transmission), Body (Includes A/C & Airbags), Chassis (Includes ABS) and Network / Bus aspects:
- Get alerts for a vehicle’s malfunctions, in real time, with specific Diagnostic Trouble Code (DTC) indications.
- Receive a notification whenever a dashboard indicator light turns on; it will help your mechanic assess the problem.
- Also, get alerts for OBD II removal.
5. History and trip log data
- See your routes on the map.
- Track your fleets’ mileage.
- Keep trip log, history records.
- Get analytic reports for driving habits and vehicle malfunctions, for every trip.
- Apply the ‘business trip’ indicator to make the most of deductible expenses.
6. KPIs on driver behavior
Get alerts concerning aggressive or careless driving behaviors, such as:
- hard brakings
- sharp turns
- fast accelerations
- high speed or RPM
From the moment you start monitoring your employees’ driving behaviors, you’ll immediately know how they perform behind the wheel; from then on, when you spot unsafe driving behaviors, you can find solutions to make sure they drive safely. A rule of thumb is to cultivate a culture of conscious driving among your drivers, and educate them, via:
- An ongoing training program; including, defensive training courses.
- In-depth performance reports; for instance, you can use these to offer data-based feedback to your drivers.
- A reward policy, based on which you can encourage your high-performing drivers to keep it up; and, at the same time, offer incentives to the rest of your employees.
Wrapping up your friendly driver management
The best vehicle management platform incorporates the capacity to monitor and manage drivers, implementing driver management tools. With driver KPIs in place, you can make quicker, better-informed decisions, and create a suitable driver safety awareness program.
Also, you can train your drivers on defensive driving practices, and find applicable ways to help them improve their performance; rather than having to deal with the consequences of serious road accidents, caused by poor driving behaviors.
Once you have your fleet team up and running with Veturilo, you’ll start noticing the value it brings. That’s the power of a good vehicle management platform and its advanced — or even basic — driver management tools. Together, we can work towards making your fleet business healthy and sustainable. Signing up to Veturilo, you’ll quickly discover ways to minimize your operational costs and keep your drivers safe on the road. Bringing Veturilo driver management tools into play, managing — and streamlining — your fleet will be easy as ABC.