The system works best for predictable operations rather than reactive ones, such as litter squads.

Nonetheless, having saved 24,000 miles and 115 tonnes of CO2 in its first year across the refuse fleet, Clifford says the modelling is ongoing.

“As external factors change, we can keep reviewing it. We can advise where new tip, transfer or treatments sites should be, based on our modelling, so it has a pre-event as well as post-event analysis function,” he says.

“The challenge is time. You cannot programme local knowledge into a computer and so we need to discuss routes with the teams to see whether they will work in reality.”

Water treatment company Dakro moved away from its old sat-nav systems to a new iPad-style application called Remote Mobile Worker (RMW).

Dakro’s engineers must make seven client calls a day, starting from home, and were previously notified of journeys for the day by head office.

Now jobs are input to RMW directly and the journey is planned for the driver automatically.

The company says this has saved 15% on its fuel bill.

It is also now examining fuel-card data to see where journeys could be optimised.

LCV fleets are often easier to optimise in terms of journeys than car fleets because sales forces and executives have more autonomous workflows.

This means car drivers must be encouraged to think creatively about maximising the value of the journey, whether that is through car-sharing, hitching a ride with a delivery vehicle or planning more client visits to the same area.

Zenith Hygiene uses TomTom tracking to analyse routes taken by drivers, and operations director Mike Rayner does challenge drivers on their choices.

“I do show people how they are sometimes wasting fuel by taking poor routes.”

He says the challenge is to overcome preferences and habits.

“We do not use routing software for the car fleet, but I do encourage people to forward plan.

"With proper journey planning such as combining visits, they can not only save emissions but save themselves hundreds of miles on the road,” Rayner adds.