By Greg Bartlett
You’ve worked hard to create your business, a delivery company which services most of the eastern United States. You’re hoping to expand your service to the rest of the continental states, but you’ve run into a problem. Currently you have a few hundred vehicles, but if you’re expanding, you’ll probably have to double the number of deliver vehicles. It’s not even the money for the vehicles which is the problem, it’s keeping track of them. Your poor assistants have enough headaches now with trying to chart where everyone is and what stops they’re making. You could double the staff, as well, but maybe there’s another option.
Fleet of Delivery Trucks Utilize GPS
With GPS fleet tracking, you can actively monitor your entire fleet, saving you money and saving your assistants headaches. GPS fleet tracking will monitor your vehicles’ location, speed, stops made, length of stops, and can even monitor the vehicle’s mechanical condition. Your assistants can find out a vehicle’s real-time location almost instantly, and you can review the information about stops, speed, and time to ensure that your drivers are being careful and aren’t misusing company vehicles or time.
Furthermore, GPS tracking offers you the ability to streamline your process, finding the most direct routes to a stop so that you can decrease time and fuel costs and increase efficiency. If a customer calls and needs you to pick up something, you can find the closest vehicle and quickly give your driver directions for the most efficient way to and from the additional stop. Companies who start using GPS tracking often see productivity increases and cost decreases of usually around 15-20%, including decreased fuel costs of approximately 20% and about a 30% decrease in mileage.
GPS fleet tracking can also help if one of your vehicles is stolen. A few months ago, a company vehicle was hijacked, but the company and police were able to follow the car and capture the hijacker quickly, retrieving the vehicle with its contents intact. Some GPS tracking units also have the option of a panic button so that if your driver runs into difficulty, he can alert you at once to a problem.
In addition to solving your problems about how to monitor your expanding fleet, GPS fleet tracking will help save you money, hopefully making up for some of the expenses of purchasing the additional vehicles. If you’re looking at expanding, use GPS to properly monitor your fleet, increase productivity, and decrease expenses.
