5 Ways To Reduce Fleet Costs That May Surprise You

The costs of maintaining a fleet of vehicles can eat up huge sums of the company’s budget. Fleet or rolling stock management is not cheap, so reducing costs may positively affect the company’s financial condition. Find out about five ways to reduce fleet costs – some of them may surprise you.

1. Measure tire pressure regularly

A simple method to reduce fleet costs is to frequently check and maintain proper tire pressure on all fleet vehicles. It is worth involving your drivers for regular measurements because under-inflated tires wear out much faster and… lead to increased fuel consumption. This is because an under-inflated tire sticks to the ground more tightly, which improves rolling resistance. Then the car must use much more energy to move. 

The research of the well-known tire company Continental 1 shows that even small pressure differences generate high costs:

• 0.2 bar lower pressure – fuel consumption increases by 1% and tire life decreases by 10%,
• 0.4 bar lower pressure – fuel consumption increases by 2% and tire life decreases by 30%,
• 0.6 bar lower pressure – fuel consumption increases by 4% and tire life decreases by 45%,

Now think about your company’s fleet size and multiply 4% of the fuel consumed and the need to replace tires almost twice as often for all vehicles. Quite a lot, right?

2. Change your insurance offer

It is worth checking the insurance offer every year. Companies offering insurance for fleets compete vigorously and try to attract customers with lower prices or additional services packages. By negotiating rates with your current insurer or simply changing your insurance company, you can generate significant savings with the same or better quality of service. The better conditions you can get, the larger your company’s fleet is – if it has increased in recent years, you will certainly save on changing the AC and TPL insurance.

3. Don’t save on service

How much do vehicle repairs cost? A lot. For example, the MZK 2 rolling stock in Greater Poland spent 142 thousand zlotys on vehicle repairs in one year. PLN, which accounted for … 74.8% of the total budget. However, repairs are one of the most important elements affecting the fleet’s efficiency, so how can you reduce their cost?

Paradoxically, you should not save money on repairs. By choosing cheap, poor-quality service, we expose vehicles to more serious and costly faults in the future – not to mention that we endanger drivers’ health and lives. In addition to choosing a reliable service, it is worth systematically arranging vehicles for inspections. Parts of fleet cars are wearing out more intensively. Therefore, if the necessity to carry out major repairs is not allowed, and all minor faults are quickly identified and repaired, the vehicles will reward longer life and efficiency, 

4. Limit empty runs

Empty mileage is another factor that strongly influences fleet management costs. Returning without a new load or without specific goals on the way back not only does not earn but also generates costs – the company has to pay for the fuel used, parts of the car wear out faster, and drivers have to pay for additional working hours. Meanwhile, according to the Central Statistical Office 3, in 2020, empty mileage in domestic and international transport amounted to as much as 29% of all journeys! This is as much as 23 million kilometers of unproductive routes. 

Reducing empty runs is an important part of your fleet management strategy. Tools that automatically plan routes and take into account time windows allow you to control them. They take into account many factors and keep unproductive journeys to a minimum, considering vehicle types, availability, and availability of drivers. Such a tool is the Routimo route optimizer, which you can test for free and without obligation for seven days.

5. Create optimal routes

Routing with Google Maps or smaller applications that are not designed for fleets is one of the most common mistakes. Human routes are not optimal in terms of length, ease of travel, or fuel consumption. On the other hand, fuel consumes up to 30% of the operating costs of a fleet of vehicles 4. 

Route optimization systems map routes much better than people, and they calculate faster and consider more factors. Rides are mapped out and improved based on historical data and access to maps in real-time. Planning routes using optimization software can reduce the maintenance costs of a car fleet by up to 30% 5.

It turns out that even minor changes can significantly reduce costs incurred by logistics departments. So we want to ask you one question: do you want to learn to manage your vehicle fleet and its costs better? If so, test the Routimo fleet management system for free and without any obligations for seven days. We will show you how much you can save by using our software. 

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