7 Ways to Improve Your Fleet’s Fuel Economy in the Fall
10 Aug 2015While we don’t want to rush the sendoff of summer, the reality is autumn is just around the corner. Now, is a great time to make changes to improve your fleet’s fuel savings this Fall.
Fuel usually makes up the biggest operating expense for fleets — and is often increasing. According to Car Care Council’s executive director, Rich White, many drivers are not aware that fuel consumption has a significant impact on your auto care and the amount of gas you use.
He says that although gas prices continue to climb, there are ways you can improve fuel economy and save money by properly maintaining your vehicle, including some of the below.
- Keep Tires Inflated
One of the easiest and cheapest ways to cut on fuel costs is keeping tires inflated; however, this is often the most overlooked. When tires are below the recommended 4 to 5 psi manufacturer’s tire pressure, there can be as much as a 10 percent increase on fuel consumption, which can overall lead to a 15 percent reduction in the tread life of the tire.
- Avoid Long Idling
When a car is idling, it is getting 0 miles per gallon. When you idle for great lengths of time, regardless if you are sitting on the shoulder of the road to make a phone call or sitting at a railroad crossing, turning off the engine can help to reduce gas consumption. You use approximately the same amount of gas when you idle for 30 seconds as you do starting up the engine. Therefore, it’s best to shut the engine off when expecting to idle for longer time periods.
- Avoid Fast Starts.
Jackrabbit starts, as they are called, make a vehicle consume extra fuel when accelerating. Your fleet drivers need to analyze their driving behaviors to see if they participate in this type of gas -wasting driving behavior.
- Maintain Speed Limit
Drivers waste gas when they speed. They can save over 20 percent in fuel economy by not driving aggressively. When it comes to stop-and-go traffic movement, keep an eye on the traffic that is two or more cars ahead to help maintain speed.
- Come up With an Efficient Routing Plan
If your fleet follows a set daily pattern, developing an efficient routing plan can help manage fuel costs. Having a routing plan in place not only helps with fuel efficiency, but also helps with time efficiency too.
- Perform Regular Maintenance
Regular maintenance improves fuel economy. Things to include in your maintenance plan are air filter replacements, tire pressure checks, tune-ups, gas cap replacements, and fixing more serious maintenance issues such as a faulty oxygen sensor. This alone offers a 40 percent mileage improvement, according to the US Department of Energy.
- Use GPS Fleet Tracking
A large part of your fleet management job is to keep up with your vehicles and drivers. To carry out this duty optimally, you can install a GPS tracker in the vehicles. This will allow you to monitor both the drivers and the vehicles to check for speeding and idling which as you can see wastes a great deal of gas.
Along with proper maintenance of vehicles, changing driving habits like avoiding quick stops and starts and observing the speed limit can help to increase fuel efficiency. Avoiding excessive idling, consolidating trips and even removing unneeded items from the vehicle’s trunk can also have an impact on fuel consumption.
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