10 Things Today’s Fleet Technology Can Tell You About Your Operation
When many people hear the words fleet tracking, the first thing that comes to mind is GPS.
Where’s the truck?
How long has it been there?
When will it arrive?
Those are certainly useful questions—but today’s fleet technology can answer a whole lot more.
At Greg’s Petroleum Service, we’ve implemented Samsara across our fleet, and one of the biggest benefits is the amount of information that can be brought together in one platform.
Modern telematics can provide insight into the truck, the driver and the overall operation.
Here are some examples.
- Where Your Vehicles Are
We’ll start with the obvious one.
Real-time GPS allows fleet managers to see vehicle locations, while routing and dispatch capabilities can help coordinate daily operations. Samsara includes both real-time GPS and routing/dispatch functionality within its Vehicle Gateway.
For businesses with vehicles spread throughout a large service territory, that visibility can make dispatching and customer communication much easier.
- What’s Happening With the Truck
This is where things become particularly interesting from a maintenance standpoint.
Connected vehicle data can provide much greater visibility into what’s happening mechanically.
In our own fleet, for example, Samsara can provide information such as DPF status and vehicle warning information.
Instead of learning about every problem after the fact, fleet managers can have another source of information for identifying maintenance needs.
- Maintenance Needs
Samsara’s Vehicle Gateway includes maintenance schedules and alerts, with the goal of helping fleets avoid breakdowns.
For a fleet manager responsible for multiple vehicles, bringing maintenance information into a centralized system can make it easier to see what needs attention.
- Hard Braking
A hard-braking event doesn’t automatically mean someone is driving poorly. Sometimes another vehicle pulls out, traffic stops unexpectedly or road conditions require an aggressive response.
But repeated events can identify a pattern worth understanding.
Samsara can detect harsh driving events including braking, acceleration and turning.
- Hard Acceleration
The same is true of aggressive acceleration or throttle events.
Looking at these events over time can give managers greater insight into how vehicles are being operated and provide opportunities for driver coaching where appropriate.
- Potential Safety Risks
Modern fleet technology can go well beyond acceleration and braking.
Samsara lists more than 40 AI detections across categories including collision risk, distraction, traffic violations, harsh driving, road conditions and weather conditions. Examples include speeding, following distance, lane departure, mobile usage and inattentive driving.
The goal isn’t simply collecting more data. It’s identifying information that can actually be acted upon.
- Idling
For a company like ours—and many of the fleets we serve—fuel is a significant operating expense.
Samsara’s Vehicle Gateway includes fuel and idling reporting, providing another way to understand where fuel is being consumed.
If a fleet discovers excessive idle time, managers can investigate why it’s occurring rather than simply seeing higher fuel consumption at the end of the month.
- Driver Performance Trends
One event tells you what happened at one moment.
Patterns tell you much more.
Samsara can assess risk using multiple factors, including event severity, event frequency, safety scores, event and coaching history, total drive time, road conditions, weather and time of day.
That context is important because fleet management shouldn’t be based on a single data point.
- Positive Driving Behavior
Fleet technology doesn’t have to be only about finding problems.
Samsara also identifies positive behaviors such as defensive driving and provides tools designed to recognize safe driving.
That’s an important distinction.
Good fleet management isn’t simply asking, “What did the driver do wrong?”
It can also ask, “What are our drivers doing right—and how do we reinforce it?”
- The Bigger Picture
Perhaps the biggest benefit isn’t any single piece of information.
It’s seeing information together.
Vehicle health. Maintenance. GPS. Driver behavior. Safety. Fuel consumption. Idling. Compliance.
Samsara describes its vehicle telematics platform as a command center connecting fleet, field and back-office operations.
For fleet managers, that can turn thousands of individual data points into something much more useful: information you can act on.
At Greg’s Petroleum Service, we’re using this technology within our own fleet as part of our ongoing effort to improve safety, maintenance and operational efficiency.
Interested in seeing what modern fleet technology could tell you about your own operation? Contact your Greg’s Petro representative to learn more about Samsara and commercial fuel delivery.