There are several things that come to mind when thinking about how transportation companies can cut costs and one of the most significant opportunities is with fuel consumption.

Fuel is considered the ‘second largest variable expense (after depreciation)’ faced by transportation companies. While you have no control over fuel prices, you can, however, improve driving habits, maintenance, and employee-management relationship to cut costs.

Driving habits directly impact the fuel efficiency of your fleets and there are a number of important steps that transportation companies are already looking into using sensors, mobile apps, and analytics to track and manage the behavior of their drivers.

Many organizations with fleets fail to consider the impact drivers have on vehicle fuel economy.

Hard acceleration, idling, inconsistent speeds, excess use of air conditioning, and hard braking are bad driver habits that can be corrected with driver training and/or education.

According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, a driver can impact fuel efficiency as much as 33 percent!

Such strategic direction, however, requires collaboration on all levels of management in order to achieve driver buy-in, acceptance, and success. Some vehicle tracking systems monitor and report “events” such as hard acceleration, braking, or cornering, and can also reveal excessive idling time.

Exploring these areas of opportunity is absolutely critical for transportation companies and something many have already adopted to drive more profit from emerging opportunities that technology provides.