Philip Dennis is committed to reducing its carbon footprint: with 60 HGVs, 32 cars and four vans on the road six days a week, it was looking for an effective fuel-saving strategy.
Transport manager Mike Carter says: “As a former driver, I knew that improving driver behaviour was key to saving fuel, but I needed a tool which could enable me to do so. That is why I turned to Fleetmatics’ Reveal.”
One negative driving practice that has seen a dramatic turnaround is idling – which is down by 90%. “I noticed that some drivers would leave the engine on while grabbing a coffee from the canteen or filling in their paperwork,” says Carter.
“Some drivers thought that leaving the engine on was necessary to keep the vehicle refrigerated when stopping for a delivery – this is wrong. Ensuring that the doors are shut properly is enough.”
With the Fleetmatics Reveal traffic light system, he can now see on the Live Map module (pictured) if a vehicle is parked to perform a job (red), running (green) or idling (amber). “Whenever one of our vehicles turn to amber I immediately give the driver a call to make him aware of the incident,” he adds.
“As the drivers are being monitored their driving behaviour has improved dramatically and idling practices have decreased by 90%.”
Other poor driving practices, such as harsh braking, speeding and hard cornering, have also improved dramatically, he says.
A driver league table will now be implemented, with incentives for the best drivers and coaching for those who under-perform.
Carter says of Fleetmatics: “Compared to other GPS tracking systems on the market, it is very intuitive and it’s easy to use without any training.”