In the restoration industry, workers are always on the go. Natural disasters don’t wait for vehicles to get out of the shop or stop to fuel up. When it’s time to go, workers must have access to well-maintained vehicles to keep operations running efficiently. GPS fleet tracking solutions can help managers avoid stalls when customers are relying on them for quick service. These solutions don’t just keep track of workers’ locations; they can also track vehicle maintenance and fuel management to ensure your vehicles are just as responsive as you are.

Properly managing vehicle maintenance helps to optimize vehicles and keeps them running at their most fuel-efficient levels - not only saving money, but time as well. GPS fleet tracking solutions help managers extend the life of their vehicles by providing maintenance schedules, logs and reports to ensure that all of their vehicles get the service they need before duty calls.

Maintenance Schedules and Logs 

Restoration managers are in a constant balancing act - juggling a workforce, a tenuous and at times unpredictable schedule, in addition to multiple projects. Managing a fleet along with its maintenance schedule can be a tedious task. Automated maintenance schedules provided by fleet tracking solutions help take the guesswork out of servicing vehicles and let managers maximize assets by ensuring preventive upkeep is occurring consistently and on schedule. The solution will alert managers to the vehicle that needs service to avoid costly future repairs. Employees in the field can also update vehicle information via a mobile app, ensuring the office has the most up-to-date information.

After completing scheduled maintenance, managers can utilize maintenance logs to track vehicle maintenance and view details of services performed to ensure policies are being followed and met. With maintenance reports, managers can customize and generate the data they need for a complete picture of their fleet. Tracking preemptive maintenance means healthier vehicles, lower fuel and repair costs and more employees getting their work done on any given day.

As summer approaches, managers can expect to see an increase in gas prices. With a comprehensive fleet tracking solution, businesses can cut costs and meet budgets with tools that allow for complete fuel management. GPS fleet tracking technology has made tremendous advancements in recent years, with added functionality that has transformed it from simple track-and-trace to complete fuel management. Remediation businesses can take control of their fuel spend with features such as fuel card integration, automated fuel reports and alerts, and route optimization.

Fuel Cards, Automated Reports and Alerts

Having an effective way to manage and track fuel and maintenance purchases is key to keeping operating costs down. Companies that have fuel cards can integrate all fuel and maintenance purchase data into a GPS fleet tracking solution and view it on one screen. This eliminates the time consuming process of sorting through receipts and transaction data and provides automated fuel reports that allow fleet managers to monitor fuel use by each vehicle and slippage and streamline the IFTA Fuel Tax reporting process.

While monitoring fuel activity provides useful insight to address gas spending, there are also driver behaviors that impact fuel consumption. A major wasteful activity is idling, which can be addressed by idle alerts and reports within a fleet tracking solution. These signals can be used to determine if idling is an issue and if so, how much of an impact it’s having on a company’s bottom line. With idle alerts, fleet managers can receive instant notification via email if any vehicle exceeds a user-defined idle limit. Monitoring and reducing excessive vehicle idling not only cuts fuel spend significantly, it helps to lessen the spread of harmful carbon emissions.

Route Optimization

Routing plays a major role in fuel usage. Remediation workers are often in a hurry to serve their customers. Providing drivers with efficient routes can make a world of difference when it comes to arrival time, which affects customer satisfaction, while reducing fuel costs. Fleet management solutions can re-route drivers on the fly if they get lost or stuck in traffic, lowering mileage and improving response times. Dispatchers can also send optimized routes to drivers through in-vehicle personal navigation devices or mobile devices, helping drivers maneuver around traffic congestion or road delays quickly and easily. In one instance, a fleet tracking customer was trying to navigate the streets of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina to help victims in need. Even with power outages and street signs down, the business was still able to reach its customers utilizing a GPS routing system.

Less time driving means less fuel consumed, thus decreasing fuel spending – even in those summer months. While it seems almost impossible to juggle all the responsibilities of managing a restoration and remediation business, managers can find ways to reduce spend and work with lighter budgets using a variety of fleet tracking features.  Staying up to date on vehicle maintenance and controlling fuel usage to decrease spend are just a few of the advantages of a GPS fleet tracking solution. As technology continues to advance and grow, fleet tracking providers will continue to develop and produce more budget-friendly features to benefit the restoration industry.