Geotab: Now's the time to get a grip on fuel consumption

One of the best bits of advice you'll receive anywhere is not to worry about things outside of your influence, like dramatic fuel price escalations. That's what the Stoics call the Dichotomy of Control and on which Marcus Aurelius commented 'you have power over your mind, not outside events. Realise this, and you will find strength'.

Give me strength, though, is almost certainly on the minds of anyone buying diesel, petrol, Jet A1 or any of the other wonders flowing from crude - all issues outside of the Roman emperor's gambit. And, while you're unlikely to have any control over spiraling prices, there is in fact plenty of opportunity to manage when, where and how fuel is consumed.

While that may matter in a small way for your personal SUV, the laws of scale mean for any fleet operator, dollar savings quickly build to the thousands, the hundreds of thousands, and even the millions.

"There's always room for improvement, always," confirms Geotab's APAC Associate Vice President, Heavy Transport Andrew Hintz. "And if you haven't got a digital platform, you're blind to what's going on inside and outside the cab."

Sounds about right, and Peter Drucker would likely roundly endorse such a notion as without data, management isn't much of a possibility.

Now, the mention of you and your SUV isn't as trite as it may appear at first blush. There's a reason for relating fuel prices directly to one's own wallet, and that goes to motivation and incentive.

Every one of us fancies ourselves the world's best driver, and everyone else out there to be among the worst, and when in charge of our own destinies the motivations and incentives for careful or unconstrained driving are clear. Why? Because the savings directly accrue, and so driving efficiently is more likely than not.

Not so in the unmanaged fleet vehicle.

Here, the incentives might be driving a little more aggressively, accelerating and braking hard for the thrill of it or to shave seconds off runs. Scenic routes just because. Vehicles idling for extended periods in the scorching Pilbara…basically, the tragedy of the commons applies when there is no adverse consequence for consuming more of a resource than is necessary.

Hintz laughs "Yes, everyone is a good driver until they're not. And the thing is, a good digital solution becomes something like a digital driver trainer, it's there to help not penalise. If you're speeding, braking hard, not thinking ahead of the vehicle, it all adds up in fuel burn and additional maintenance."

Those costs can be significant, Hintz confirms.

Which put TechDay in mind of Sir David Brailsford, coach extraordinaire to the Tour de France-winning Sky team. Cycling is a sport of efficiency, and Brailsford made his name in pursuit of 'marginal gains'. Tiny benefits eventually adding up to substantial advantages.

Fuel conservation, too, is a practice of efficiency and marginal gains. Every tiny bit helps. Efficient driving also extends wear-item life: suspension, brakes, tyres.

"A transport operator I spoke to recently, runs a fuel tanker fleet, both carrying and using fuel. Each vehicle runs a couple of hundred thousand kilometres annually, each using around $250 000 per vehicle," notes Hintz, going into an example of how these gains stack up. "Achieving a 10% reduction in [fuel] consumption across a fleet of 150 vehicles is quite possible by helping drivers improve their trade. It also quickly adds up to real money."

Drucker jumps back in here, figuratively of course. Unless a mechanism for tracking driver behaviour is in place, achieving those savings - which Hintz says are demonstrable - remains theoretical rather than practical. "Data is the answer. It also opens up other avenues for improvement, like better routing and avoiding congestion hours," he adds.

Being as we are somewhat dogged about incentives, the real question is 'what's in it for the driver'? We know the answer for our own personal vehicular behaviour. Hintz agrees that this is a big part of it; when savings pass directly to the man (or, indeed, woman) in the cab, that is when the magic of human automation happens, combining with technical capability and delivering durable results. Simply put, more pay for less fuel consumption is easily understood and a powerful motivator.

While this is largely in the hands of the fleet operator rather than the likes of Geotab itself, Hintz says the company has some experience and an offering in that vein called Geotab Vitality. "It's big in North America and we do offer it to customers in Australia," he notes. "We have a great range of providers for driver rewards and continue to expand this offering."

He does confirm that (of course) introducing a telematics solution comes with its own overheads, which can include an individual responsible for managing the solution and the data that comes out of it. Quite often, this is an administrative person already in place; in larger operators, a dedicated staff member may be hired.

As is the case with any solution or service, the value one derives from it is proportional to the investment of time and effort; "The amount of data can be overwhelming," Hintz concedes, "But we advise starting with the easy and fast wins, like excessive idling, and progressing from there."

The bottom line though, is powerful. Visibility is key, you can't manage what you don't measure . With no end in sight for fuel price escalations, 'consumption opacity' should be consigned to the past.