During just a few months, the Swedish transportation company Götene Kyltransporter has improved the eco-driving performance dramatically. Impressed by the great achievements, Vehco made an interview with Mattias Vilgfors, who is working as Project Manager to improve the driving behavior at GKT.
The Transport company Chaussenot Transport (France), rents public work equipment and machinery with a driver. Frédérique Guichet, the company's administrative manager, testifies on their main return on investment of their telematics system: the optimization of drivers' working hours.
Since the company pays the travel time of machine operators, automatic and accurate tracking of these trips has resulted in savings. "Before, we were dependent on written reports from our drivers and visual checks (on the parking lot). With our telematics system, we have an automated recording of travel times. This has enabled us to reduce actual travel time by 30%."
Utilizing a Fleet Management System Features can greatly reduce waiting times. However, technology cannot do anything. The reason why waiting times is a problem for companies in the industry is that it costs a lot of money and lowers the delivery precision. Companies Vehco has contacted say that they charge parts of the waiting times to the customers, but it is rarely possible to charge it all. Either the customer is not willing to pay, or it will only pay for parts of the waiting time.
There are many reasons why driver need to wait before loading or unloading of goods. In a survey conducted by Vehco it turned out that one of the most common reasons for waiting times is that the customer is not prepared for the driver to arrive. The waiting time may occur by queueing or that staff who will receive the transport are not in place. Sometimes queues may occur because several vehicles from the same carrier try to load or unload at the same time. In these cases, the problem is primarily with the traffic management that should ensure that this is avoided.
The digitalization during the recent years has changed the way of working for many companies in the transport and logistics industry. But the
development and the implementation of new technology are at different levels. Some companies have come far with integrated systems and high
level of automatization while some companies are still in the beginning of their “digitalization journey”. The freight notes are part of the business that are undergoing a digital change. In the Nordic countries, the development and implementation have come further than in the rest of Europe. Digital freight bills have great advantages over their physical equivalent. The most obvious difference is that physical way bills can be dropped, broken and they require...
Some Fleet Management Systems have the ability to create virtual geographic areas on a map. In Vehco's system, this feature is called Geofence. This feature allows companies to create areas of any kind on a map. When a vehicle equipped with Vehco enters or leaves a geofence-area, this is recorded in the system. As you decide on the size of the area, you can calculate how long time it will take for the vehicle from it enters the geographical area until the vehicle leaves the area. Often, such a geographical area is placed just around the loading area of the customer. Obviously, it is then important to know the actual time for the unloading- and loading activities so that you can break out what is the waiting...
It is often pointed out that the first step in solving a problem is to be aware that you have a problem. This also applies to unnecessary waiting times for loading and unloading of goods. In a survey carried out by Vehco, it turned out that 90 % of the interviewed transportation companies were aware that their drivers are experiencing waiting times, but they did not have a good estimate of the scope, nor what these hours cost the company. At the same time, the interviewed companies showed a great interest in finding ways to register and reduce the waiting times, if there are efficient ways to do it.
Fleet Management System can be used to identify and quantify waiting times. Vehco's system offers several features to do this. Depending on how the business is run, you...
Many transportation companies experience waiting times and they are costly both in terms of money and time. Waiting times often occur at the customer's place, as the driver must wait before loading or unloading of the goods. Even if every waiting period is not always long, it quickly accumulates to substantial time, which costs a lot of money over time. For most transportation companies this is an indirect expense that is difficult to get full coverage for when the customer is charged. For this reason, there is good potential to save money and time in this area.
In this e-book we will explain how to effectively measure and reduce the unnecessary waiting times that are common in the industry. We will partly discuss how telematics and Fleet Management Systems can be used to...
Transport companies are on the verge of even more extensive digitalization. Terms like Big Data, AI (Artificial Intelligence) and IoT (Internet of Things) will become more common in the industry.
In the case of Big Data, transport companies need to learn how to exploit the large amounts of data that can be generated from an FMS. The data can be used for decision making based on real facts. Companies that early gets "data-driven", i.e. who base their decisions on actual data, will have a big advantage compared to companies that manages the business based on gut feeling. One example can be to automatically collect data from the operations (e.g. km-production, driving behavior, fuel...
Cost reduction and streamlining are important goals in digitalization. There are many areas where thoughtful use of FMS quickly can provide savings. Digitalized handling of transport missions and time reporting, driving behavior and fuel consumption monitoring, automatic handling of files from the tachograph and driver card and instant messaging are common examples of efficiency enhancements that usually provide quick savings. Utilizing real-time positioning of vehicles to assign new missions to the nearest available vehicle is another example of directly reduced transportation costs. The companies that understand the many ways FMS can be used to reduce costs has a lot to win.
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