Should We Stop Focusing on Fuel Savings?
The drop in fuel prices is welcome news; I just don’t think it changes much about how a fleet should approach fuel efficiency.
In my experience, fuel savings is a full-time job. I ran private fleets without fuel hedging for most of my career. When diesel jumped, the budget got tight fast, and anything that required capital or time to implement got shelved. That’s a tough spot to be in.
When operating in a for-hire environment, fuel surcharges help offset the impact of higher fuel costs, but improved fuel efficiency significantly improves the P&L.
My recommendation is to continuously work on fuel savings. If an initiative pays off at lower fuel prices, the savings amplify when prices climb.
Look Inside Your Operation First
Before you go shopping for something new, look at ways to improve what you’re currently doing.
Incentive plans with drivers can dramatically improve fuel efficiency. Well-designed incentive plans improve fuel economy more than many hardware purchases.
Idle reduction is another area I always come back to. It’s easy to dismiss as small gains, but across a large fleet, idle time adds up fast. From driver incentives and idle-reduction programs to parameter updates and technology upgrades, idle management is an underutilized lever for reducing costs that offers many non-capital-intensive solutions. Managing idle time and delivering fast, consistent fuel savings is one of our specialties at Idle Smart.
Improved routing can reduce miles, which also improves fuel efficiency. Reduce the payload mileage in multi-stop environments: Drop off the shortest distance stop first instead of traveling to the furthest stop first, and increase the cube fill percentage to run fewer trips
Don’t Stop Looking for Ways to Improve
Pay attention while traveling. In the past, I would look at the different trucks I saw and notice products I might not have installed on my fleet.
Study benchmarking data of similar fleets. Talk to your peers. Go to webinars to learn about processes and innovations. People in this industry are generous with what they know.
The Best Time to Start Was Yesterday
I remember having to budget as a team, and we had just been given a stretch goal, and our budget target was reduced more than we had anticipated. Our work in improving fuel efficiency had made the stretch goal attainable, but it was still going to be a rough year. As an exercise, we ran the fuel expense numbers based on our performance prior to implementing our changes. There was no way we could come close to the new proposed numbers. As a team, we realized the importance of incremental gains each year and that improving fuel efficiency was key to our success.
I was at a conference, talking with a fleet leader who once told me that he’d put idle reduction on the agenda three years in a row and never pulled the trigger because fuel prices dropped, so the urgency faded. Don’t lose the sense of urgency to improve even when the price pressure is not as great.
Fuel prices will fluctuate; they always do, but improving fuel efficiency is worth the investment all year round.
Want to talk about fuel savings for your fleet?