There are many well-known, tried-and-true fleet fuel management strategies that can help reduce fuel costs for small to mid-sized fleets. The typical strategies and sequence for successful fuel management programs include:
Step 1: Assess your fleet & fuel needs: The first step is to accurately assess how much fuel you need to operate your small to mid-sized fleet. Typical questions to ask include:
- Number of vehicles & types of vehicles
- Number of drivers
- Number of miles driven by week, month & year
- Total fuel costs spent per year
Step 2: Develop an accurate fuel spend reporting system: In pursuing step 1, you may find that your tracking of fuel usage and expenditures is not as well tracked as you’d like. Develop a system, or research affordable fuel reporting apps or systems designed for small to mid-sized fleets. Top criteria for a fuel spend reporting system are:
- Ability to track fuel spend by driver and by vehicle
- Ability to know who purchased fuel, what was spent, where it was purchased, and when
- Ability to “flag” exceptions and/or questionable purchases
Step 3: Research fleet fuel management programs: You’ll want to find fleet fuel management programs designed for small to mid-sized fleets. In doing so, they’ll be geared for the volume of your fuel purchases, and should be easy and affordable to deploy with a minimum of fuss.
Step 4: Ongoing assessment: Ongoing review & oversight of your fleet fuel management program is key to implementing course correction as needed, and to layer in best practices that help save money on fuel costs.
By applying these four best practices, managers of small to mid-sized fleets can wisely manage resources and operate as efficiently as possible.
Route Planning Software: An Overlooked Area of Fleet Fuel Management
Typically, fleet managers of small to mid-sized fleets deploy fuel management programs to save money, reduce operating costs, and improve profitability. But an often overlooked way to improve fleet fuel management is to simply reduce the miles driven. That’s accomplished by route planning software tools like RouteSavvy.
Route planning software allows fleet managers to input addresses for the day’s service calls, pickups, or deliveries; optimize the route to make all the day’s stops in the most efficient way possible; and reduce the miles driven.
Smart fuel management programs will most certainly help control a small to mid-sized fleet’s fuel costs by improving efficiency. When used in tandem with an affordable route planner tool that reduces miles driven (thus reducing a fleet’s fuel spend), fleet managers can achieve optimal savings on their fuel costs.
For more information on RouteSavvy route planning software designed for small to mid-sized fleets, check out our Free, 14-day Trial.
