What You Need to Manage a Fleet of Trucks

• (Photo : Nigel Tadyanehondo on Unsplash)

Business owners have many duties ranging from keeping tabs on profits to ensuring your employees are doing well. However, another task that requires your attention is your fleet. Your fleet is one of the most important aspects of your business, but with so many trucks on the road and routes to plan out, it can be difficult managing it. In this article, we'll be going over what business owners need to know about managing a fleet of trucks.

Install GPS Tracking Systems

One of the most difficult tasks of managing a fleet is seeing where each vehicle currently is. Not knowing where your fleet vehicles are can cause a lot of confusion and disorganization, which is what you want to avoid. Furthermore, losing track of your vehicles can greatly increase the risk of theft. Installing GPS tracking systems can be very advantageous for many reasons. To start, you'll have a greater visibility into what your fleet is doing in real time. But being able to identify each vehicle and see their location is only part of the package. Another added benefit of GPS systems is that it lets you plan out your routes better. Having every driver's route planned out can save time. There's a lot that goes into installing GPS tracking systems, so be sure to review a guide that goes into more detail about it.

Obtain Comprehensive Data on Your Trucks

When it comes to fleet management, you also need to know what the trucks themselves are up to. With tech increasing accessibility in so many ways you need to take full advantage and there's no better way to do that than by installing an ELD. ELD, or electronic logging device, is a piece of technology that allows you to have better insight on what a vehicle has been through while being operated. ELDs are installed into the onboard diagnostics (OBD) of a car, which functions similarly to the motherboard of a computer. Once installed, it records the following information:

■ How long the vehicle has been driven

■ How many miles the car drove

■ Data on the engine

■ How the vehicle was turned at a certain period of time

Another device you can install for more data are tachographs. These work and are installed similarly to ELDs except they prioritize the speed and distance of the vehicle. Having more in-depth information about each vehicle helps you understand which ones require more maintenance, who goes on longer routes and whether or not the drivers are being safe on the road.

Stay on Top of Preventative Maintenance

Although trucks can last longer than most cars, they're not invincible. In fact, getting your fleet routinely maintained is probably the most important aspects of being a fleet manager. You might be wondering how you can get maintenance for an entire group of trucks. You can do this with relative ease by putting each vehicle on a fleet insurance policy. Fleet insurance works almost identical to traditional car insurance except you can put every truck in your fleet on a single policy. This is done as a way to save both time and money while still making sure your fleet doesn't have any issues on the road.