Your employees, the fleet drivers, play one of the most important roles within your business. Their role ensures that you can pick up and/or deliver your services or items efficiently. It is therefore essential that this role is optimised as much as possible to improve your business operations.
This is where driver management comes in.
Effective driver management of your fleet drivers can save your company considerable time and money, not to mention how you can modernise your fleet on the whole. Read on to find out how driver management put you in the driving seat.
How Should Fleet Managers Best Manage Their Fleet Drivers?
As a fleet manager, you can integrate a vehicle and driver tracking system into your business.
What is a driver tracking system?
This is also known as vehicle tracking, or a car monitoring system, and it plays an integral part in your driver management. This system uses GPS location technology to give you real-time insight into where your vehicles are. Good vehicle tracking systems present this information on a user-friendly interface, which you can view via desktop, tablet and mobile.
You can start managing your fleet drivers by using the included driver identification feature to manage your fleet drivers. Each of your fleet drivers receives a small Bluetooth device, which works in unison with vehicles installed with a Vimcar vehicle tracker. This means that it will only transmit data when the driver is near one of these vehicles, meaning you can see which fleet driver is using which vehicle in real-time.
Read More: Why Does Driver Identification Matter?
Get a Beginners Guide to Fleet Driver Tracking in 2021
How Should Fleet Managers Best Communicate With Drivers?
Good driver management systems also ensure that you know where your fleet drivers are. This allows you to benefit from improved communication with your drivers.
In the past, fleet driver communication was largely inefficient and required a one-by-one fleet driver location check via hands-free communication. Luckily, you can now cut out this procedure by viewing exactly where your drivers are with GPS technology. This means that communication with your fleet drivers has become instantaneous, and further benefits of this include:
- Always be able to send your closest driver to the client
- Coordinate your driver trips to save money
- Receive alerts every time a journey is complete
Read More: How Does A Car Monitoring System Put You In Control?
As a fleet manager, it is also very important to keep your driver management approach as transparent as possible with your fleet drivers. When it comes to rolling out your new high-tech and modern driver management system, you should nevertheless remain aware of car tracking laws in the UK.
Following relevant laws include:
- You must inform your fleet drivers before installing vehicle tracking devices
- Employees must have the right to know about the information you collect from them
- It is illegal to track an individual instead of a vehicle
- If the vehicle is being tracked, the driver must be informed of this
For a more detailed overview into the best legal practices, it is worth referencing our post in the link below.
Read More: Learn What You Can and Cannot Do With Car Tracking Systems
How Does Fleet Tracking Protect Your Fleet?
Driver management as part of vehicle tracking or truck tracking also helps you to minimise vehicle misuse. It is an unfortunate fact of reality that vehicle misuse is a common occurance and that some fleet drivers may seek to take advantage of your trust.
Vehicle misuse is defined as “unauthorised company vehicle misuse by employees”. This includes fleet drivers using company vehicles after hours or to run personal errands. This activity could harm your business in the following ways:
- Increased unnecessary mileage
- Increased fuel costs
- Insurance costs if the driver gets into an accident
However, that’s not to say you can’t prepare for this. A good driver management approach can eliminate this entirely, not to mention how your business will benefit.
For example, you can implement geofencing. This is a virtual barrier that you can set up. Should a vehicle venture outside of this determined area, you will be alerted with a notification. This gives you even greater control over your fleet, no matter where you are.
Read More: How Can You Further Protect Your Business Against Vehicle Misuse?
Manage Your Fleet Drivers With Good Driver Management: Vimcar
Vimcar’s Fleet Geo provides your business with cutting edge technology to optimise your operations. Whether you want to keep a closer eye on your fleet drivers, manage your vehicles more efficiently, save money, or all of the above. Vimcar is specially designed with SME business needs in mind.
Contact Vimcar today to arrange your specialised package for your fleet. Find out how exactly Vimcar’s Fleet Geo can benefit your business and save you money.
How to Manage Your Fleet Drivers with Vimcar’s Driving Style Analysis (DSA)
Fleet drivers play a crucial role in any fleet business operations. Your fleet drivers will determine whether your company stay up and running or collapse due to inefficient driving habits. It’s no wonder you need to adopt a tactical and results-oriented fleet driver management system to help you keep an eye on your fleet drivers. You may be surprised how effective fleet driver management can help your fleet company cut down costs, save time and improve your customer services.
You don’t have to worry about your fleet company failing due to your fleet drivers’ inefficient habits. Luckily, with Driving Style Analysis (DSA), you can have your fleet driver management taken care of in your favourite devices. Read on to learn how you can manage your fleet drivers with the DSA fleet driver management tool.
What is DSA?
DSA is a tool used by fleet managers to manage their drivers. The DSA fleet driver management tool will provide you with the behaviour history of every driver to assess every driver’s efficiency score. With DSA, you can reduce unnecessary costs brought by poor driving habits, reduce unsafe driving and maintain your company’s professional image. You can access every crucial information about each driver in your fleet using devices such as mobile phones, tablets, laptops or desktops.
How Does DSA Help with Fleet Driver Management?
The DSA fleet driver management tool comes in handy when fleet managers want to track their drivers’ information. You can easily get information about vehicle speed, vehicle idling, phone usage and acceleration statistics on your devices.
This fleet driver management technology has an efficient scoring system where every driver receives a score out of 10. The scores help drivers to assess their behaviour and understand their strengths and weaknesses. On the other hand, the management uses the scores to evaluate each driver and understand areas where their drivers should improve.
You can use data to keep your drivers on check any time they’re on the go. This means every fleet driver will know that someone is following all their moves, so they should drive efficiently. In the case of drivers who constantly misbehave and become a company’s liability, managers can use the DSA management tool to sort them out. Managers can give them a chance to change, or they can look for other better drivers.
Benefits of using DSA Fleet Driver Management Tool
Besides tracking your fleet drivers’ habits, there are other benefits you can get from this fleet driver management tool. Some of these benefits include:
1. Reduce Costs
Your drivers’ habits can highly influence several expenditures. Costs such as fuel costs, speeding fines and insurance plans and claims can reduce or increase depending on how your drivers behave on the road. With a DSA fleet driver management tool, you can encourage efficient driving habits the help to keep such costs in control.
Drivers will minimize vehicle idling to reduce fuel consumption. They’ll avoid speeding to ensure no speeding fines come their way. Eventually, having a sense of responsibility will reduce the chances of breakdowns and accidents that may heavily affect the company’s budget.
2. Encourages Productive Communications
The DSA fleet driver management tool will come in handy when communicating to your drivers on the road. Using the scoring system, you can hold internal discussions with your drivers to look for ways you can improve service delivery. You can address areas that you’d like your drivers to change to encourage driver efficiency. Using GPS technology, you’ll send your drivers to different clients and coordinate trips conveniently.
3. Maintain a Company Professional Image
Inefficient driving can spoil your company’s professional image. If your company has misbehaved drivers, your fleet may end up causing accidents and being misused. Such poor driving habits may have a toll on your business as they may destroy the image of your business.
When using this DSA fleet driver management app, you can uphold your company’s professional image by ensuring your drivers are well behaved. You’ll reduce the chances of accidents and speeding. Your clients will always feel comfortable hiring your services. As a result, your company’s professional name will be maintained.
4. Keep Your Fleet More Eco-Friendly via Fleet driver Management
With a proper fleet driver management system, you can ensure your vehicles remain eco-friendly. Your drivers will reduce vehicle emissions where possible by avoiding vehicle idling, speeding, excessive acceleration and additional mileage. When you keep your fleet eco-friendly, you’ll help keep the environment clean and safe and avoid expensive insurance plans. In the case of a driver who doesn’t comply with your company’s eco-friendly rules, the DSA fleet driver management technology will help you identify them and take the necessary actions.
Final Thoughts about Fleet Driver Management
How well would you like to manage your fleet drivers? With the right fleet driver management technology, you can take control of your drivers, reduce costs and maintain your company’s professional name. Use our Vimcar’s DSA driver management tool today and encourage efficient driving habits among your fleet drivers.
