Fleet management systems help businesses easily and effectively monitor and manage their vehicles, drivers, and other assets using the best software services.
With a fleet system in place, more businesses can eliminate unwanted manual processes that slow down their productivity and profitability.
This comprehensive guide explains how Cartrack’s must-have fleet management system can transform your business.
A fleet management system is a software-powered database that allows fleet managers to handle a wide range of tasks, which helps them successfully manage and coordinate their entire fleet.
Imagine your business purchasing 20 new company cars for employees. While you are prepared to cover the costs of insurance, ERP charges and taxes, repairs, and maintenance expenses, you are not willing to cover your employees' personal fuel use. You also might want to ensure that your employees don’t abuse or handle your vehicles recklessly.
To complicate matters even more, imagine that your business also recently purchased 5 new EV trucks for its operations and 3 generators for power at your construction site. How could your fleet manager possibly manage 25 different types of vehicles, three stationary assets, and even more drivers and fleet staff?
Before we get into more detail on these key features, you may be a new small business owner wondering how a fleet system even works. Or, you may be even more curious about how your business can benefit from adopting an IT solution for its fleet management.
Let’s quickly demystify how fleet management systems work and then move into the different components that make it such a useful asset.
A fleet management system uses GPS technology and telematics to collate and store important information about your fleet, such as vehicle and asset data, driver details, and more. Fleet add-ons include cameras, sensors, fuel monitoring systems, cost management software, and a delivery platform.
Using this collated information, fleet managers and other authorised staff have access to a database of your fleet’s information, where they can monitor and manage your fleet from anywhere via the web or mobile app.
While different fleet software companies use different fleet management software platforms, Cartrack’s fleet management system works through three main technologies:
Firstly, our state-of-the-art GPS tracking system is installed in your vehicles or assets and provides real-time vehicle or asset positioning (location).
This same tech also acts as an on-board diagnostic tool that communicates other essential vehicle information, including the vehicle’s speed, brake performance, and engine and battery diagnostics. This method of data-based monitoring for bikes, vehicles, trucks, and other commercial fleets is called telematics.
Secondly, all the data collected from the GPS and telematics devices is instantly processed and stored in a fleet management system with cloud-based software.
Finally, fleet managers and other authorised staff can access processed information and data-driven reports to make smarter and quicker decisions about their vehicles, drivers, and other assets via our FleetWeb platform and downloadable app.
A fleet management system is the perfect solution for any business, whether it has a fleet size of five vehicles or a complex fleet involving 500 business assets.
Let’s detail five key features of the fleet management system, how the feature works and the beneficial use of each.
Fleet managers gain full visibility into their fleet operation and can quickly see exactly where their vehicles are located, the vehicle activity and its travelling speed and movement for data-driven decision-making. Moreover, they can access the vehicle's history of use to see past locations and activity via the web or app platform.
Asset tracking technology helps managers keep track of their remote assets. For example, if your construction site has a generator, you can monitor it and receive notification of unauthorised activity or if it’s moved from the site. One of the major benefits of vehicle and asset tracking for businesses is security. For example, live tracking helps businesses ensure that their vehicles and assets are being used to fulfil business purposes and not misused by their drivers and other employees.
Monitoring driver behaviour and your employee's use of vehicles, machinery, or equipment is an effective way for fleet managers to improve driver safety, accountability, and productivity. Driver behaviour monitoring reports on harsh and often costly driving habits, such as harsh braking and acceleration and excessive idling that can wear out your vehicles, resulting in costly maintenance and repairs. Our telematics-based driving scorecards rate your drivers and help fleet managers coach drivers to improve their driving skills.
Driver monitoring is an effective driver safety and productivity solution for businesses, helping to ensure the optimal performance of their workforce.
While built-in tools, like GPS-powered route optimisation, can reduce your business’s overall costs, an integrated cost management tool is one of the best ways for fleet managers to manage the wide range of costs involved in keeping their fleet running. From their driver fuel claims to vehicle insurance, tax payments, maintenance and repair costs.
Advanced cost and accounting fleet management software, like Cartrack’s MiFleet, helps you track every expense to ultimately reduce vehicle running costs. MiFleet helps with fuel cost savings using fuel cards and fuel reports that instantly pick up inconsistent refuelling and fuel card payments or claims. It also helps fleet managers extend your fleet’s lifecycle and build your vehicle’s service history. The software merges your maintenance costs with vehicle usage reports so you can predict your vehicle's maintenance cycle and receive alerts when your vehicles are due for service or booked for maintenance/repairs.
Unfortunately, many fleet management systems are not equipped with this tool, so when choosing a fleet management system, consider getting one with software that can be easily integrated into the system.
Fuel is one of the largest expenses faced by fleet companies and business owners. This may be due to the general increase in fuel costs, but many fleet managers are challenged by possible fuel theft and bad driver behaviours that affect fuel consumption (such as excessive acceleration, idling, and vehicle misuse).
Fleet systems can be integrated with fuel monitoring systems, including sensors, to help managers accurately monitor fuel consumption and manage their fuel costs. Cartrack’s fuel monitoring system uses industry-leading fuel monitoring hardware to help businesses keep track of their fuel levels in vehicles and machinery to reduce monthly fuel use and budget appropriately for their fleet. For example, if your fleet mostly operates at a construction site, you can easily monitor the fuel use of your different machinery and vehicles at the site.
Last but certainly not least, a fleet management system gives fleet managers access to reliable data-driven reports for smarter decision-making and fleet reporting. Fleet reporting is a management tool for assessing fleet performance, identifying areas for improvement, and tracking fleet and driver trends over time.
There are various fleet reports that managers can generate and make use of, including:
With our fleet software, businesses can customise their fleet reports and set the frequency with which they want the data.
For example, if a fleet manager wants to monitor machinery and asset use at a remote site, they could take advantage of an asset utilisation report or create custom reports for their specific reporting needs.
Now that you know the features of a fleet management system, are you still concerned about whether it’s the right IT solution for your business?
Whether a fleet management system is right for you and your business depends on several factors. We’ve identified six reasons you’d want to consider before taking the next steps.
These factors should help you better decide whether a fleet management system is right for your business. Add some practical instructions on how to implement a fleet management system and the different uses of Cartrack’s fleet system, and we’re sure you’ll be convinced.
We didn’t promise a complete guide just as clickbait, here is a total of 5 steps on how to implement a fleet management system for your company, whether you are an SME or large corporation.
Driver monitoring or fuel monitoring? Driver productivity or delivery progress? What are your business's pain points that are costing you money, productivity, time, or customers?
The first step is to identify your fleet challenges and set clear goals and objectives you aim to achieve to improve from these challenges. For example, if you are worried about your driver’s safety when out on the road, then you can set a clear goal to improve driver safety in your fleet.
But the only way to achieve this goal is through the smaller indicators, milestones or KPIs that measure your progress, which can be identified, tracked, and measured via the fleet management system to help you see if your business is on track to achieve your goal.
A recent survey revealed that over 50% of fleet businesses surveyed identified driver safety and well-being as their top business focus for 2024. What are your goals for your fleet this year?
Here are some examples of fleet goals you can set for your business:
A quick search of the best fleet management company in Singapore or even the global market will reveal countless fleet companies from which you could choose. But in such a saturated market, how do you know if you’ve picked the best fleet company for your business or even just on the market?
It’s simple: The best fleet management company is the one that offers cutting-edge fleet software that’s customisable to your unique business needs. Cartrack Singapore is a leading global Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) company that provides fleet management solutions to businesses in over 20 different countries and various industries. Want to learn more? Contact us here.
Here are some things you’ll want to look out for when choosing your fleet management company partner:
Once you’ve decided on the best fleet system for you, it’s time to bring your team together. From drivers and fleet controllers to managers, get all your fleet staff involved because it’s time to adapt to a new way of doing things. Although fleet systems are designed to be user-friendly, your team will require training on how to use the new system effectively.
Training your employees is very important, and most people get excited about upskilling. To get started, develop a detailed plan communicating the purpose of a new fleet system and the special training and demonstrations available to your team to get them on board.
For example, drivers may want to know how to use the Cartrack App to communicate with the fleet controller while on the road, while the fleet controller may be more concerned with how to use the fleet system to coordinate work vehicles.
Some ideas on what to train your team and employees on:
Once you’ve set up your fleet management system, you can start monitoring your fleet closely. At this stage, it may be easier for your fleet manager to identify issues with their fleet and drivers.
Fleet managers can monitor their vehicle and driver activity and assess their overall fleet's performance over a specific period. This will help them quickly identify the shortfalls of their fleet, for example, excess fleet fuel consumption or dangerous and harsh driving.
For example, if your business is in logistics, you can start tracking your fleet’s deliveries. Here are three things you could start monitoring immediately
Finally, a fleet management system involves continuously monitoring your fleet to improve its performance and ensure the maximum ROI from your asset investment and new fleet management software.
Fleet managers can use fleet reports and review data to plan how to improve their fleet and assess whether they are achieving their fleet milestones and on track to achieve their fleet goals.
For example, you may have multiple fleets purchased in different years and places, but a fleet management system can help you keep track of each vehicle's maintenance and inspection. Now that you have the basics of fleet monitoring down, you can focus on your fleet’s maintenance and keep up to date with fines and toll payments.
Cartrack’s fleet management system is designed to make managing your fleet effectively easier, show you how we do this and have a look at the numerous benefits of a fleet management system for drivers, managers, and business owners.
Real-time monitoring of drivers and vehicle performance means drivers are never alone when they travel on the road. Driver behaviour monitoring helps identify unsafe driving and reduce the risks of accidents. Drivers are also assured that their managers can respond proactively if there is a security or safety concern.
Our fleet management system provides big data analytics so fleet managers can make smarter decisions about their fleet, drivers, and maintenance.
Cartrack helps businesses reduce their operating costs through improved vehicle and asset visibility, fuel monitoring systems, and preventative maintenance that ensures their fleet runs in tip-top shape and extends vehicle and asset lifespan.
IoT and big data-powered fleet management is no longer a futuristic concept but an essential part of any business relying on a fleet of vehicles.
You’ve got the full guide to fleet management systems. Are you ready to get started with Cartrack?
Contact us for a demo.
1. What is the fleet management system?
A fleet management system is a software solution that helps fleet managers and business owners monitor and improve their fleet performance.
2. How does a fleet management system work?
Fleet management systems use data from real-time GPS tracking devices, telematics, and fleet software to collect and analyse data and provide reports on fleet performance.
3. What are the benefits of using a fleet management system?
With a fleet management system, businesses stand to benefit from the following:
4. How is fleet management planning done?
Fleet management planning is the process of understanding your fleet’s performance now and developing a plan for your fleet in the short and long term. It begins with compiling a list of all your fleet assets, including vehicles, machinery, and equipment and all the information and expected life cycle. Thereafter, you can develop records on the fleet maintenance and service history, the life cycle of the asset and plan how to manage the fleet utilisation.
5. What is the best fleet management software?
Cartrack offers some of the best fleet management software available on the market, providing SMEs, corporations, and other public service providers with the best fleet solutions for their operations.
Contact us for more information here.
Take advantage of the most effective software that improves your business. Discover our ultimate what, how, and why of fleet management systems.
