Keeping your vehicle and drivers safe on the road is an important task to maintain profitability and achieve business sales. The driver’s happiness and comfort are crucially significant both to their wellbeing and safety, so fleet management can help to portray a professional image to public members and clients. You need to keep an eye on the best tricks and strategies to retain your fleet in its best possible shape. Therefore, here are top fleet management tips to keep the vehicle in the best condition.
1. Implement A Maintenance Program
Many fleet managers have heard the proverb “prevention is better than the cure” and it is on which prevention program usually depends. Maintenance and prevention involve a series of regularly scheduled vehicle checkups to fix and identify small issues before they become more expensive. These problems can have a great impact on the profitability and efficiency of your business. That’s why you should need to create a routine maintenance checklist that fulfills the special requirements of the vehicle. The preventive list should include checks like:
- Transmission fluid
- Filter changed and engine oil
- Belts and hoses
- Cooling system
- Windscreen wiper duster
- Wheel, tires, and trims
- Interior and exterior lights
- Exhaust system
2. Communicate Fleet Preventive Policies With Drivers
No one has a better idea of vehicle performance and potential issues than drivers. Therefore, always assure that all the drivers are aware of the responsibilities to check vehicle needs and can report any problem immediately. If the vehicle needs a repair of genuine spare parts or it is involved in an accident, the drivers should need to have the ability to manage the vehicle proficiently.
3. Encourage Drivers For Good Behavior
One of the best fleet management tips to keep your vehicle performance best is to motivate drivers for good behavior. Appreciating eco-friendly, cost-effective, and safer driving through telematics and providing the prizes for the best-kept cabs can be helpful to improve the way of driving and promote a sense of pride. Furthermore, incentivizing positive driver habits will also reduce fuel costs, improve driver safety and lower the likelihood of accidents.
4. Fit All-Seasons Tyres
The concept of fitting several tires depending on the weather conditions is a good tip for fleet management. With the winter weather becoming more frequent, you need to put your vehicles in complete protection. Rather than downtime of changing to winter tires and incurring the costs, use season tires that can be utilized all year offering reliable performance in the summer and winter months. Although tires of all seasons cost a few more, they will improve safety.
5. Acquire Data And Keep A Record On Your Fleet
Keeping a record of information provides you with the opportunity to monitor and measure vehicle performance. As a manager, you are responsible to keep an eye on every detail of the vehicle, like which driver is handling the fleet with time duration. Make sure to have drivers’ signatures on the logs daily. With the help of digital records, it becomes easy to find a report at a fast rate than searching through the pile of papers. The fleet management software provides fleets managers complete details of the vehicle such as:
- Maintenance history
- The condition and pressure
- Alternate routes
- Common routes
- Vehicle condition
- Mileage after and before a shift
- The software is helpful to take overall control of the fleet operation along with regulatory and adhering requirements.
Some other important fleet management’s tips are:
Hire Qualified Drivers
For almost all fleet management organizations, hiring competent and qualified drivers is a challenging task. A successful driver represents the face of the company to the customers and the public. The following are backgrounds, skills, certifications, and other abilities that should be kept in mind while hiring a driver for your vehicle.
- Perform a background check
- Check driving license with class requirements
- Must have a medical card
- The driver has a commercial driving license to operate trucks
- Have steady employment history with appropriate experience
- Must have complete knowledge of technology
- Friendly and well-groomed
You can also ask for references that help to learn about the candidate’s skills, capability in the field, and job behavior.
Offer Driver’s Additional Training
According to U.S. Department of labor statistics, implementation of driver training can serve to lower the financial consequences of a corporate vehicle collision. By giving drivers valuable information, your company emphasizes the significance of responsible vehicle operation by reducing vehicular crashes.
Therefore, you need to arrange screening policies for drivers by training them for safe driving policies. Make the driver aware of outcomes that may occur because of distracted driving and mobile use during driving. Always assure to make them sign a document of safety rules and understanding of policies.
Create A Fleet Inspector Role
A well-defined inspection schedule is the first thing to maintain a healthy fleet. Preventive maintenance such as tire change, engine cleaning, and oil changes must be performed regularly. Set an alert either on your fleet management system or on your calendar. If the effort and cost of monitoring the schedule are too high, consider hiring an experienced and dedicated vehicle maintenance provider who will take care of these things by providing you more time to focus on business.
Final Talk
Managing and operating a fleet in an ever-changing atmosphere can be tricky and demanding. Fleet managers have to supervise different complex fleet operations daily such as cost savings, vehicle maintenance schedule, increased business efficiency, and effective driver training. Of course, as with many things in business, it is not easy to maintain the condition of a vehicle with proper management.
However, haphazard expansion, human error, and poor drinking can take on the general health of the fleet. Therefore, to avoid such circumstances, one should need to know and completely understand the fleet management tips and tricks.