5 Fuel Management Techniques to Save Costs & Increase Efficiency

Because fuel typically accounts for over half of a fleet's overall operating expenditures, managers need to have real-time data and visibility to manage their expenses properly. 

However, designing a strategy to safeguard against excessive fuel use is not necessarily straightforward, and companies must identify the correct technology solutions and fuel management techniques to address this challenge.

What is Fuel Management?

Fuel management is the process of monitoring and optimizing gasoline usage in personal or commercial vehicles. Delivery fleets, field service teams, and even couriers use fuel management to minimize inefficiencies to increase revenue and cash flow.

Five Fuel Management Techniques

Below are four ways companies can improve fuel management to help increase efficiency and the bottom line:

1. Conduct Training Programs and Offer Incentives

Managers who use a system with driver scorecards and fuel usage dashboards will be able to cultivate a culture of driving efficiently by evaluating trends over time.

These tools enable them to:

• Measure the impact of their safety measures on the bottom line by comparing driver behavior patterns to fuel and maintenance expenses.
• Offer gamified rewards.
• Intensify training programs.

When company safety and related fuel spend KPIs improve, it is common for organizations to award both individual and collective team rewards. Managers can, for example, offer tips on how to achieve improved performance and then incentives such as business awards, efficiency bonuses, and improved benefit offers such as more paid time off to keep staff motivated.

2. Implement a Consistent Replacement Strategy

Keeping a fleet up to date is critical for managing fuel expenses. Companies might consider environmentally-friendly vehicles, such as hybrids and other Alternative Fuel Vehicles, to minimize fuel-related costs. Electric vehicles, for example, are an excellent alternative because they cost less to cover the same distance as regular internal combustion engines and are proving to deliver lower maintenance costs.

While adding these vehicles to a fleet may require a higher up-front investment as these vehicles typically are more expensive than traditional vehicles, this strategy will likely save money in the long run.

3. Consider Aerodynamic Designs

Aerodynamics is a less well-known but effective fuel management approach. The role of aerodynamics is to direct airflow around trucks to minimize wind resistance. These designs require less acceleration to achieve the same speed and decrease the amount of fuel burned per trip.

Here are some considerations for aerodynamics:

• Identify vehicle parts that accumulate the most dirt and insects (indicating an area where the wind hits most directly) and considering redesigns.
• Include the correct and most aerodynamic features between the hood and bumper.
• Obtain systems that successfully work in tandem.
• Ensure the proper installation of new parts. 

4. Create Smarter Traveling Strategies

Fuel expenditures drop when fleet drivers spend less time stuck in stop-and-go traffic, idling, or backtracking on their routes.

As a result, it may be valuable to assess and redesign current driving routes. Whether a company should consider routing changes requires answering the right questions, which should include:

• Are drivers being directed with the most direct delivery route?
• Does that direct route include excessive traffic congestion?
• Are there alternate routes or a splitting up of routes that might improve flow?

5. Implement Fuel Cards

Fuel cards allow administrators to monitor and validate all transactions involving fuel purchases. This purchasing process helps management identify which drivers and vehicles are using fuel responsibility and which are wasteful and potentially exploitive. Additionally, fuel cards can help with some fraud detection, restrict non-fuel purchases, and tend to offer discounts on fuel.

Combine Fuel Management Techniques With the Right Technology

Companies can better manage fuel consumption — and the factors that affect it — in real-time by combining the best fuel management techniques with the right data-driven driving behavior improvement solution. 

Management can successfully rectify costly driving patterns, monitor fuel expenditure more accurately, automatically reconcile fueling with fuel transactions, identify suspected fuel fraud and, as a result of these analyses, provide more effective training and offer incentives to ensure lower total costs and a more sustainable strategy.