How Do Fleets Manage Fuel Efficiency During Temperature Swings?
Fall temperature swings can be hard on a fuel budget. Temperatures can change by 30 or 40 degrees in the same week, sometimes in the same day, and your settings, still optimized for the afternoon heat, can be wasting fuel by the next morning’s cold snap.
Idle Smart fleets have an easy way to handle it. By logging in to the SmartPortal, they can update comfort and idle-reduction settings across their entire fleet in a few clicks. No shop visit, no truck-by-truck adjustment, just a quick update right from their desk.
Smart+ takes the automation further, reading location and weather and adjusting vehicle settings in real time, so drivers stay comfortable and fuel is optimized at every temperature, completely automatically.
What Is Smart+?
Smart+ builds on Idle Smart’s core functionality by automating idle management based on real-time weather, location, and conditions.
Your Customer Success Manager will help you configure your parameters in the SmartPortal.
Then, no matter what the weather does, Smart+ ensures your trucks run only when necessary, helping your fleet save fuel and reduce engine wear. You’ll get:
- Real-Time Adjustments: Automatically adjusts settings based on environmental and operational conditions.
- Fuel Savings: Significantly reduces idle time, resulting in immediate fuel savings across your fleet.
- Efficiency: Keeps your trucks running smoothly without manual intervention, maximizing uptime and reducing maintenance costs.
What Do Drivers Get From Smart+?
Systems that don’t allow for OTA updates require drivers to bring trucks into the shop, eating into their drive time and earning potential. With Idle Smart and Smart+, drivers never have to leave their routes for seasonal adjustments; they’ll stay comfortable without racking up the fuel bill no matter what the weather does.
How Does Smart+ Help Maintenance Teams?
For maintenance leaders managing large fleets across multiple regions, any manual seasonal update is one more line item, multiplied across every truck, every route, and every climate. When fleets are large and shops are short-staffed, reducing manual inputs and operational complexity becomes a must.
When seasons change, fleets using Idle Smart can quickly update parameters for the entire fleet, a group, or an individual truck in the SmartPortal. Smart+ automates even more of the idle management process, adjusting and optimizing in real time and eliminating the need for even remote seasonal adjustments. It’s one less thing for you to do, and it’s very effective for fleets looking to reduce fuel costs and overnight starts for drivers.
What One Fleet Saw After Adding Smart+
PAM Transport added Smart+ and saw the impact inside a month.
“Choosing Smart+ was a no-brainer. In just one month, we saved an additional $60k in fuel costs and reduced starts by 42%. This made a great impact on operational efficiency, improved the health of equipment, and significantly enhanced the overall driver experience.” — Director of Fuel, PAM Transport, Inc.
Making seasonal adjustments, even by groups, takes time across thousands of trucks. Smart+ not only completely automates PAM’s idle reduction year-round, but it also leads to reduced maintenance costs and fast fuel savings
Is Smart+ Right For You?
Smart+ is a great option for large fleets with unique needs.
If you think it could be right for your fleet, talk to your Customer Success Manager or reach out to us here.
FAQs
Can anyone get Smart+?
Smart+ uses the Idle Smart system to amplify the savings already realized by the system. If you have Idle Smart on your trucks, ask your Customer Success Manager about Smart for your fleet.
Don’t have Idle Smart yet? Don’t worry, it’s a quick and easy installation. Our team is eager to help you save fuel and protect your batteries today. Connect with an expert to get started.
What are overnight starts?
When drivers are resting overnight and Idle Smart detects that the cabin is outside the driver’s comfort range or that the battery voltage or coolant temperature is low, it starts the truck. It runs only long enough to get the cabin back to the target temperature, the voltage to a charged state, and warm enough to avoid gelling, then shuts off.
If the temperature on an unexpectedly cold morning is drastically different from the fleet’s summer parameters, the truck(s) may start more often than needed.
Smart+ reads real-time conditions and adjusts parameters automatically to keep starts to a minimum and prevent unnecessary wear.
What is the pricing?
If you’re an Idle Smart Customer, ask your Customer Success Manager about pricing for your fleet or contact Idle Smart Support.
If you’re new to Idle Smart, ask our team about getting started with Idle Smart and Smart+.
Do drivers do anything extra?
Nope – like with Idle Smart, drivers don’t have to do a thing. Smart+ is implemented by fleet leaders and their Customer Success Manager via the SmartPortal. Drivers won’t notice a change in their operations, and some may appreciate having fewer starts at night.
How do we maintain it?
Like Idle Smart, Smart+ is maintenance-free. It’s designed to be set-it-and-forget-it: once you configure the parameters, you shouldn’t have to change them.
However, if you decide to change your settings for any reason, your Customer Success Manager is happy to help you, and Admins can also update them in the SmartPortal.