It’s Not Idle To Think About Idling
One of the things some GPS system purveyors mention in their “how you’ll save money” sales copy is fuel savings via control of excess idling. I was stuck in traffic for a bit yesterday and I got to thinking about idling and why it’s kind of important that people keep it up higher in the business consciousness than it normally is.
Many of the “save fuel” suggestions and technologies revolve around a zero sum game. You can save gas by slowing down, but of course you also take longer to do your tasks, running the risk of overtime, late deliveries, unhappy drivers and irritated customers.
You can save fuel by using a smaller vehicle for deliveries. But then you wind up running into capacity problems, possible increased maintenance because the vehicle runs at or over capacity more often, and for some vehicles, you just can’t substitute .. there are no suitable smaller alternatives.
You can save fuel by driving less. Sometimes this is a good option, but suppose you’re a delivery company with trucks on the road and you decide to save 20% per week by not making deliveries on Fridays? Hmm, let;’s think that through. You won’t save 20% of your mileage because you’ll have to make more trips on Monday through Thursday to get the orders out. You will certainly annoy customers who will (rightly) perceive this as a win for you, lose for them situation. And what will you do with the drivers on Friday? Pay them not to work? Cut their weekly pay 20%? Neither one sounds like a very good option to me. Of course in the special case of a school bus operation you can always put out a notice to the parents that they have to “do their bit” to conserve fuel (for you) by driving their kids themselves on Fridays. Ought to be good for a heck of a laugh … for the few minutes it will take for the superintendent to prepare your pink slip 
But there is one technique that will absolutely save and will not hurt your business in any way. Educate your drivers, enlist their aid in improving the business’s bottom line and install a GPS system that is optimized to measure and report on idling. You drive the same routes the same days. Your drivers keep driving whatever speeds are legal .. or you know about it. And the savings are real.
I never equipped a fleet where we didn’t find an hour or more per week excessive idling. Often there were some much more egregious waters in the group of vehicles. An hour is a gallon or more of fuel … not to mention the extra wear and tear on the engine, which many now agree is substantial.
Reducing idling is one of the easiest changes you can make in your fleet operation … or even in your own driving. The much sought-after hybrid cars have a lot of jazzy technology, but one of the biggest gas saving techniques they use is so simple it’s almost a “Homerisim”. Turn off the engine when the car is sitting still more than 30 seconds or so. Yes, even at a long traffic light. Those minutes add up and the “extra, optional equipment” is already bought and paid for … you thumb and forefinger turning off the key.
This may have been a random thought, but it wasn’t an idle one.