The ROI of GPS … Idling (Part 1)

March 09, 2006 By: Mr. GPS Category: GPS Successes, GPS Tutorials, GPS for Business

Yesterday in my The ROI of GPS … Are you Hesitant to answer these questions? (Intro, Part 0) post, I promised we’d go through the subjects below as a general education in why you really do need GPS tracking for your business.

(Today’s Topic)How much time and how much fuel am I losing from idling engines?

Are my drivers speeding and where?

Where are my miles going? Am I making full use of expensive assets?

How much is asset abuse really costing my company?

What time are my drivers starting work and what time are they completing their shifts?

How many minutes of pre and post trip time are you paying for?

Are my drivers arriving on time for their deliveries?

Are my drivers making unauthorized stops?

How productive are my assets?

Are my sales representatives making their required customer calls?

You may think this is kind of a low-key way to begin, and perhaps it is … but it’s a big issue in today’s world and it’s one of the few things your cars and trucks are doing that you can really control and get a return on your investment immediately.

Do you think idling doesn’t matter much? Consider these three points

1. It’s very common to see 5 or more minutes of idling per customer stop. Suppose your sales rep visits 12 customers per day .. at 5 minutes per stop that’s at least $2 to $4 dollars a day … totally wasted expense, and much more than the cost of buying a GPS tracker, especially on a no down payment lease to purchase

2. Idling causes as much wear and tear on an engine as driving down the highway at 50 mph. You aren’t plagued by the problem of having your vehicles last too long, are you? Why wear them out sitting still?

3. Idling is bad for the environment and it is illegal in a growing number of municipalities and states. (see list here courtesy of the EPA) How much would a $100 idle violation fine cut into a salesman’s daily profit? How about $1,000 dollars? Check the law, it could happen to you.

There’s another hidden side to this idling issue that doesn’t always seem directly connected to the issue of waste and pollution. Not too long ago a client called me up and requested help in determining what was happening with one of his trucks which was equipped with one of our GPS tracking units. he was getting reports from all his vehicles regarding their customer visits. Time of each customer visit, time on site and other metrics that he was sure were having a direct positive result on his bottom line. Problem was, this one employee’s reports didn’t seem to show customer visits that my client knew were being made. Hmm, problem with the GPS unit? Problem with the reporting software not accurately reporting stops, whatever could it be, I wondered, as I went to the customer’s site to troubleshoot.

Given the title of this blog post you might have figured it out already. Yep, the otherwise excellent and diligent employee was driving to all the customers he was supposed to visit. Yet the stops weren’t being shown as ’stops’. Why? A clue is, our system records a ’stop’ by means of the driver turning off the ignition … otherwise the time is reported as idling. The driver was taking his brand new truck to the customer locations and leaving it idle in front of the customer stores in shopping centers at the curb, key in ignition, doors unlocked, just waiting for some opportunist to jump in and drive away. Imagine the potential liability costs in addition to the fact that this driver was idling eight (8) times as much as his best colleague’s idling time.

Without the tracking, the client would have never known. When queried, the driver stated he’s always done it that way and that he believed he was being ‘kind’ to the employer’s truck by not making it start and stop 15 or 20 times a day. His error in thinking was easily corrected and reports all returned to normal.

Moral? You can’t manage what you can’t measure.