How to Cut Fleet Costs

The day-to-day costs of running a fleet can add up quickly if you are not monitoring them.

Some fleet-related costs can go unnoticed — you can’t monitor what you can’t see. Lack of visibility into fleet management costs can really put a dent in your bottom line. There are several areas where fleet costs may be adding up unknowingly:

•Miscalculating payroll or overpaying on overtime

•Unauthorized vehicle usage

•Fuel used by each driver

•Not tracking maintenance schedules

Accurately calculate payroll:

Do you still rely on an honor system to have your employees clock in and out? What if your driver/employee came in late on Monday and left early on Thursday, but on their time sheet they put in a normal 40 hour week that shows normal start and end times for both days —even just by small increments—you are simply giving away money that could be invested back into your business.

Unauthorized vehicle usage:

Do your employees take company vehicles home at night and on the weekends? Do your drivers use your company vehicle—and fuel—to run personal errands after hours? This could be adding wear and tear to your vehicles as well as adding to your fuel bill. As a business owner, fuel can be an enormous and ever fluctuating cost, and one that is hard to control or predict.

Monitor fuel consumption:

Does your driver idle in place uncontrollably. Is the truck always running even if you have an APU or heater. Investigate and fix these maters so that you are not burning fuel. Coach drivers to stop unwanted driving habits. Something to think about: Your company vehicle is parked at the truck stop, during your driver’s break, they sit in the company vehicle and eat lunch with the engine running and the radio blasting, along with the air conditioning. Your fuel is being wasted on unnecessary idling. Other driver behaviors, such as harsh braking and hard cornering, not only waste fuel, they can increase accident risk.

Vehicle Maintenance:

Do you know when your vehicles are due for maintenance? If not, it could be costing you more than you think. If you’re in the dark about when vehicles are due for a service, critical maintenance can easily be overlooked. This might result in a costly breakdown that could have been prevented. The benefit of regular service and maintenance reminders (based on date, mileage or even hours of use) could help you save time and money.

Cut Manual Processes:

You could be losing a lot of time and money because of legacy methods that don’t take advantage of new technology that can improve accuracy and automation. As well as being inefficient and frustrating, manual processes can mean more mistakes. Even a small error in calculating a drivers’ hours may lead to overpaying. Check how you are running your business and determine if you can eliminate any manual process with an automated approach you will be saving time and money.

Track Start and Finish Times:

Do you know when your driver checked in and out from his last job? Are you billing your customers for the correct hours that your employee was on site? Have you shortchanged your bottom line because you don’t have insight into accurate start and finish times for each job? Because drivers are often busy, their time sheets may be inaccurate or incomplete. When it comes to billing your customers, you are relying on the times your drivers have reported— or sometimes not reported at all. Have a process in place where you can monitor in and out times in order to be able to accurately bill.

Time is money:

If you save time, you save money. No matter your role in the company, your time is precious. How much time do you running the same reports, building the same graphs or creating the same charts on a regular basis? It’s important to look for ways to streamline and simplify everyday activities like these that cost more time than they’re worth.

Optimized Routes:

Create an optimized route for better performance. Are your drivers taking the shortest routes from job to job, to help minimize fuel usage? When it comes to getting from A to B, you want your drivers on the quickest route or do you want them to avoid TOLLS? Or do you preffer to not run your equipment to heavy on mountain terrain? If you provide your driver with a route to use, this can save your driver time, your business money and can lead to better response times. To understand if your fleet is operating as efficiently as possible, a reliable GPS vehicle tracking solution can add enormous value. It can help you identify the most optimal route—the one that requires the least amount of fuel— and then coach drivers to use that route. You’ll also be able to provide your customers with more accurate information regarding arrival and delivery times for specific jobs.

Hours of Service: Cheat Sheet

Short-Haul Exception

The short-haul exception maximum allowable workday is changing from 12 to 14 hours, and the distance the driver may operate is extending from a 100 air-mileradius to a 150 air-mile radius.

Adverse Driving Conditions Exception

The adverse driving conditions exception is extending the duty day by two hours when adverse driving conditions are encountered. This is in addition to the extra two hours of driving time already allowed.

This change applies for both property (14-hour driving window) and passenger (15-hour on-duty limit) motor carriers.

30-Minute Break Requirement

The 30-minute break requirement can now be satisfied by an on-duty, not driving break (in addition to an off-duty break). The requirement for property-carrying drivers is applicable in situations where a driver has driven for a period of 8 hours without at least a 30-minute interruption.

Sleeper Berth Provision

The sleeper berth provision allows drivers to split their 10-hour off-duty period in different ways (e.g., 7/3, 8/2, 7.5/2.5), provided one off-duty period (whether in or out of the sleeper berth) is at least 2 hours long, and the other involves at least 7 consecutive hours spent in the sleeper berth. The periods must add up to 10 hours, and when used together, neither time period counts against the maximum 14-hour driving window

The hours of service changes was a process that began in earnest with the arrival of Ray Martinez as the Trump Administration’s first administrator of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. It advanced to the White House under Jim Mullen, who replaced Martinez and goes into effect on September 29th under the watch of Deputy Administrator Wiley Deck, who took over following Mullen’s departure this summer. The focus of the regulatory change has been, according to the FMCSA throughout the process, to give truckers greater flexibility in how they manage their time spent working. The agency also said

“modernizing hours of service regulations is estimated to provide nearly $274 million in annualized cost savings for the U.S. economy.”

What do the changes include?

Drivers will be allowed to use their 30-minute break in an on-duty, not-driving status and requiring it within their first eight hours of drive time, rather than their first eight hours on-duty.

Modifies the sleeper-berth exception to allow drivers to split their 10-hour off-duty period into windows of seven hours and three hours, in addition to the existing eight-hour, two-hour option. It also adds the shorter period in any split off-duty will pause the rolling on-duty clock.

Allows drivers to extend their drive-time limit and their on-duty window by two hours if they encounter adverse weather conditions or traffic congestion Changes the short-haul exception available to some commercial drivers by lengthening their maximum on-duty period from 12 to 14 hours and extending the distance limit within which the driver may operate from 100 air miles to 150 air miles

How have drivers reacted to the new rules?

In mid-May when the changes were finalized and the clock started ticking down to next Tuesday’s implementation, we asked readers of Truckers News what they thought of the changes. In our unscientific poll, we asked, “What best describes your reaction to hours of service rules change?”

The results:

32.6% agreed with, “Now they need to make REAL changes for truckers.”

22.3% chose, “Took too long and delivered too little.”

22% agreed with, “So what? None of the changes will benefit me.”

17.4% chose, “Thanks! All the changes will be helpful to me.”

5.8% agreed with, “Shows how the system can work for truckers.”

What did trucking organizations think of the changes?

“The new hours-of-service changes show that FMCSA is listening to industry and fulfilling its duty to establish data-driven regulations that truly work,” said Truckload Carriers Association President John Lyboldt. “We especially thank the agency for moving forward with additional sleeper berth flexibility. While TCA and our members advocate for full flexibility in the sleeper berth for our drivers, FMCSA’s new regulations demonstrate that we are one step closer to achieving that goal.”

Aren’t the changes being challenged in court?

A lawsuit has been filed, but it will not delay the implementation of the hours of service changes. A lawsuit was filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.

Circuit earlier this month by the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, Parents Against Tired Truckers, and Citizens for Reliable and Safe Highways. The suit argues the changes that take effect Sept. 29 are not based on data.

They also claim the hours changes will increase, not decrease, driver fatigue.

Teamsters General President James P. Hoffa said, “By issuing this HOS regulation FMCSA has bowed to special trucking industry interests at the expense of highway safety, seeking longer workdays for drivers who are already being pushed to the limit. We join this lawsuit to ensure that our members and their families are protected from fatigued drivers when they use our nation’s highways.”

Published By CellEx Media Group

FMCSA

Issues guidance for truck drivers who encounter threatening situations on the road:

Twenty years after 9/11 our diligence to keep our commercial drivers safe on the road is ever present. The FMCSA has issued the following for our road warriors:

Emergency conditions: In case of any emergency, a driver may complete his run without being in violation of the provisions of the regulation's part.

After seeing incidents of threats against truckers, FMCSA wants drivers to know that they may use the emergency conditions exception in § 395.1(b) to complete a trip without violating the hours-of- service regulations if the trip was delayed due to a civil disturbance causing a driver to reasonably fear for their physical safety. Any driver who experiences crime or violence should immediately call the police.

The emergency conditions exception is typically used for adverse weather conditions, unexpected traffic backups, etc. According the the FMCSA, a driver cannot use the exemption if he or she has accumulated driving time and on-duty time that would put a driver over 15 hours or over 70 hours in 8 days.

The adverse driving conditions exception only applies to the 10-hour rule.