Fleet management is important for many reasons – it is crucial that the fleet works for the business and doesn’t cause unnecessary problems for the business. You need to keep a close eye on the fleet to spot if anything is going wrong, or where things could be done in a better way.
Managing your own fleet of vehicles is rewarding but can also be stressful! As your business grows you are likely to encounter problems if you are not organised, or haven’t considered something – here are some of the things to consider when you are just starting out with a vehicle fleet of your own…
One of the most crucial things to get right is maintaining vehicles. This is not only important to the business and how effectively it runs, but also from a safety perspective you need to be sure that vehicles are not posing any safety issues to the drivers or other road users.
A calendar to mange your maintenance schedule is a good idea, as this means that you can make sure you don’t have lots of vehicles off the road at the same time. Sheets that drivers can fill in on a daily basis is also something that you should have, as drivers will be able to bring any faults with the vehicles to your attention before it becomes a bigger problem or something that is dangerous.
You should weigh up the costs of having new vehicles against the costs to maintain older ones. Sometimes it is more cost efficient to replace older vehicles as the maintenance costs can become higher in the long run than buying new vehicles.
In order to be able to manage your fleet well, you should be able to access the information that you need to do this. A vehicle tracking system is ideal for this as you have access to a lot of information – there are many vehicle tracking companies that can provide what is right for you and your fleet. As well as this, you can see where vehicles are live, which can be useful for updating customers who may want to know a time of arrival.
Planning routes for your vehicles is something that will potentially save you a lot of money and hassle if it is done well. Good route planning means that more work can be completed in a day, as well as lower fuel costs as less fuel is wasted.
Something that you should not overlook when you are running a fleet is the drivers of the vehicles themselves. Making sure that your staff are well trained is important and keeping up with regular training is a good idea. You can run refresher training sessions to ensure that standards are kept high and that all staff know what is required from them, and also to update staff if laws are changed.
