Fleet Fuel Data Management System
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Tracking fleet-wide fuel use and emissions
What cannot be tracked cannot be managed. A Fuel Data Management System relates the true costs of fleet operations, with respect to fuel consumption, to key decision makers.
A fleet manager can select the most relevant measuring tool of a variety of monitoring and measurement methods, including:
- Manually entered data
- Uploaded fuel pump data
- Fuel card or receipts data
- On-board vehicle computer data
- GPS data.
Fuel data management ensures that efficient and accurate fuel consumption and vehicle performance data is recorded and tracked. The understanding gained from this will allow fleet managers to invest in targeted areas that will result in the greatest fuel efficiency increases and emissions reductions. Ongoing monitoring and measurement performance will ensure green fleet action plans remain dynamic and ever-improving.
A fuel data management system will also provide a strong basis to understand performance variation in drivers, vehicles, and departments. The City of Victoria uses on board diagnostic equipment to develop an idling baseline. The City of Williams Lake installed a new fuel storage and dispensing system that allows them to better manage vehicle fuel consumption.
Benefits
A fuel data management system makes every other one of your fleet emissions reductions more effective. It also:
- Helps identify continuous improvement opportunities
- Provides detailed measurement of fuel performance
- Increases benchmarking comparison opportunities
- Provides accurate cost methods.
Developing a fuel data management system
The key principle of a fuel data management system is always the same: to manage fuel consumption. Local governments can take a variety of approaches to doing this, ranging from manually tracking mileage (with pen and paper) to collecting instant fuel consumption with on board computers. Each local government will be different and find one technique that provides a better cost/benefit than all the rest.
The more actively you can manage your fleet’s fuel consumption, the more effectively your fuel data management system will inform the strategies you take to reduce emissions.
Be sure to always relate fuel consumption into business outputs, such as fuel consumed by distance traveled, hour, tonne, or person and create opportunities to differentiate between business units, vehicles, and employees. This will allow you to take more targeted action and foster the desired change.
