Drivers play a big role in the efficiency, profitability, and safety of a fleet. By some estimates, drivers can influence a truck’s fuel efficiency by as much as 30% based on how they operate the vehicle.
According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, for the week of March 11, diesel fuel was averaging $4.004 per gallon. That was down -0.243 from a year ago. But as all of us in the trucking industry know, fuel prices can be volatile depending on various factors, most of which are outside our control. Regardless of the price, fuel accounted for 28% of a fleet’s total average marginal costs in 2022, according to the American Transportation Research Institute’s An Analysis of the Operational Cost of Trucking: 2023 Update.
In my most recent blog, I discussed the benefits of dashcams and in-cab videos for enhancing safety and driver coaching. In addition to data from the cameras, fleet managers can also leverage data from telematics devices for driver improvement.
Telematics devices can also be used to monitor things like exceeding the speed limit, hard braking, and fast accelerations. The devices can be programmed to capture all of those driving behaviors, and fleet managers have access to all of this information.
As any member of my team will tell you, I remind them that CSA violations are the things that drivers “got caught” doing. Telematics data, specifically showing speeding, is the data they were able to conceal. Although there could be a valid reason for a short-duration speeding event, when using parameters such as “how much over the limit and for how long,” it’s easy to weed out valid reasons from something the driver didn’t “get caught” doing. Those are perfect coaching opportunities.
Gino Fontana, CTP, is COO and EVP at Transervice Logistics Inc. Prior to this, he was VP of operations at Berkeley Division and Puerto Rico. He has more than 35 years of experience in the transportation and logistics industry with both operational and sales experience.
