Telematics systems that utilise satellite navigation functions are an obvious way of cutting fuel bills.

“A telematics solution can guide vehicles away from congestion and provide the best possible routing for your fleet, saving fuel from wasted mileage,” says Irvin Gray, marketing manager UK & Ireland for TomTom Business Solutions.

“Vehicle tracking provides an accurate basis for the most efficient job dispatch as the right driver and vehicle can be selected for the job.

“The data relayed to the traffic office can be used to generate reports which offer empirical evidence on driver behaviour – one of the key influences on fuel consumption.

"In fact, when used as part of a driver training programme, this can contribute to fuel savings of up to 15%.”

Gray also believes that the ability to log personal and business miles for each vehicle is another key area that benefits fleet managers.

“HMRC’s benefit-in-kind rules mean an employer and employee are subject to taxation if there are not accurate records kept to exclude them from such payments,” says Gray.

“This is especially significant to determine who is paying for the fuel used for those private trips. At the tap of the telematics screen, employees can register journeys as commutes, personal or work-related trips, making mileage simple to monitor, with data which can be integrated with payroll.”

Employees’ time sheets

Another area where fleet managers are turning to telematics is employees’ time sheets.

As businesses steer their operations through these economically challenging times,
eliminating false time sheet claims and cutting unnecessary overtime hours could save thousands of pounds.

“The accuracy of electronic records of driver working hours, generated by vehicle tracking software, cannot be disputed,” says Steve Blackburn, European vice-president of Navman Wireless.

“For a business with a 30-strong fleet, for example, cutting just an hour a week from drivers’ overtime claims can result in savings of more than £50,000 a year.”

Choosing a telematics supplier

Navman Wireless has built its reputation on offering a reliable technology infrastructure and telecommunications support.

Blackburn believes that choosing a vendor is “arguably the most important single decision taken when implementing a fleet management solution”.

He also says that having confidence in a system’s reliability will be “at the top of many fleet managers’ lists of requirements” when it comes to choosing the right telematics equipment and provider.

The telematics specialist is one of a few to manufacture its own hardware and software, ensuring there are never compatibility issues.

It also has dual-resilience backs-ups to ensure system reliability and it links directly into its data carrier (Vodafone) over dedicated lines, rather than using conventional dial-up links which are less reliable, minimising downtime.

Finally, when choosing a supplier it is important to look at the overall cost of implementing a telematics system including the time taken to recoup the initial investment.

Quartix is spearheading the move to pay as you go which it believes offers fleets a more affordable and less risky route into telematics

Others continue to promote more traditional methods of financing.

Stephen Doran, of Tracker, says cost is one area that will continue to be hugely important when it comes to choosing a telematics system. “The industry is currently driven by one factor: price,” he says.

“This makes price the only competing factor for suppliers and will lead us eventually to a point where reducing the cost further will simply not be viable.”

Future growth of market

Trimble’s Andrew Yeoman has one last word of advice to all fleet managers that are currently thinking about dipping a toe into vehicle tracking technology for the first time: “The telematics market is going to see incredible growth over the next five years and any companies that are not already using telematics are already falling behind the competition.”