Why Telematics policies are important for the Fleet Business?
Summary
Telematics policies are important for fleet businesses as they help to ensure safety, improve efficiency, reduce costs, and protect drivers. Fleet owners should assess risks and ensure that vehicles and employees are fit for work-related journeys. Telematics devices such as GPS tracking and fleet management software can help to monitor fuel usage, track location, and manage overall fleet performance.
To implement telematics policies, fleet businesses should set aims and objectives, list policies and procedures, train employees and drivers, and regularly evaluate performance.
Are you operating a fleet business without a telematics policy for your organization?
OR
Are you finding ways to streamline the activities with the set of guidelines to regulate the operations of your fleet and employees?
You may wonder why should there be some sort of policies for freight activities. Nowadays, no vehicle runs or operates without telematics devices like GPS tracking, fuel monitoring sensors or fleet management software or any other software.
So, we know that the riskiest and the challenging job is driving. We have seen many road accidents that cost innocent lives and also resulted in serious injuries. There are also many cases like fleet owners relying on the business they had invested on the vehicle and the load carried by the fleets is lost due to accidents and vehicle failures.
As a measure to eliminate the loss of business and livelihood, telematics policies are advisable to be implemented in every fleet organization wherein, digitization plays a vital part in every operation.
Even if you have a fleet business and still have not completed creating telematics policies, let’s see the elements needed to be considered to set one in this blog.
Purpose of Telematics policies and In what way they can help you?
When it comes to policies, it should be clearly communicated to the employees individually about their duties and responsibilities needed to be followed as per the companies requirement.
The purpose of setting policies is to ensure safety, improve efficiency, reduce costs, protect the driver and give a clear picture to establish defined expectations from the employees to operate the telematics installed vehicle for better productivity.
Fleet owners should assess the risk factors and ensure that
- The drivers who are going to take the work-related journey are safe.
- Hire the employees who are fit for the appropriate role and
- Ensure the vehicles are in the best condition to take up the long trip and capable of carrying heavy loads.
Additionally, the organization needs to be prepared to solve the risks when unavoidable circumstances arise in terms of employees or fleet vehicles in a best-exercised way.
How will telematics policies help you to control the overall operations easily?
When it comes to organization, everyone has roles and responsibilities for a particular operation, for example;
- Senior-level managers have to organize goals and responsibilities based on their business prospects.
- Mid-level managers must ensure that the employees are adhering to the policies by monitoring them on regular basis to follow the same.
- Drivers need to abide by the policies for their own safety.
If any trouble arises during the journey, there must be a systematic approach to solve the incidents readily. Telematics helps in monitoring fuel usage, Tracking the location, vehicle idling, temperature monitoring, updating regular maintenance alerts, and managing overall fleet performance.
It’s always good to keep up protocols based on the aims & objectives of your business and it helps you to,
- Analyze the risks involved in the journey and how would the driver tackle them.
- Monitor the driver’s behaviour.
- Prevent fuel theft and fuel wastage
- Improve the driving patterns based on the reviews & feedbacks
- Receive timely updates on maintenance as per schedule to reduce truck failures in the middle of the journey process.
- Handle the accident cases with proper procedures.
- Reduce crash rates and risky driving practice.
How should telematics policies be implemented in fleet business?
Frame-up your Aims & Objectives:
There is a reason behind using telematics for your vehicles, and the sole purpose of using the system is to find a solution for the problems you had faced so far. The solution might be involved to bring preventive measures or to achieve the aimed goal.
Your Problem-Solution must be your aim and objective. Also, make sure to be transparent about choosing telematics devices with all your employees and bring improvements by using this system.
List out the policies and procedures:
Develop the points to clear and how they can be consulted with fleet managers to answer all the questions related to telematics usage that your employees can raise.
- What will be reviewed?
- How will it be reviewed, and on what basis?
- What happens if the rules are not followed properly?
- In what way can I improve my performance?
- For what purpose the telematics system is introduced in the fleet?
Mention their roles & responsibilities, ELD mandate, Hours of Service, Time of record instructions like on-duty, driving time, off-duty, emergency driving, sleeper berth, adverse driving conditions to record their time in the system to know their activities.
Train Your Employees and Drivers
It is best practice to have accomplishments like bonuses, increments, and appraisals to use the telematics systems effectively. Explain why is it installed in the vehicle, teach the benefits of using it and train the employees to use the system.
- Improves Driving and prevents harsh driving.
- Reduces maintenance cost and driving cost.
- Protect them from false allegations about their driving methods and styles.
- Easy to give feedback.
Encourage employees to check for regular feedback.
The training period of employees, the responsibilities of the asset they are going to take during the trip, and the consequences of violating the rules must be listed in the policy.
Most wear and tears occur due to improper driving resulting in heavy maintenance cost. With the help of Fleet management software, it is easy to see the driver performance.
Regular feedback from fleet managers about their driving behaviour helps to reduce the sudden vehicle failure and maintenance cost.
A driver is the most valuable asset for any trucking business or any fleet business. Setting up telematics policy is not to point out the mistakes in them. We are giving an upper hand for their safety and hard work.
Performance Review:
Evaluate and review your aims & objectives achieved so far. Analyze the changes you want to bring to improve your Return on Investment by using the telematics data.
Ensure to designate someone to receive suggestions and complaints from the employees and consider their concerns. And also, it is advised to have legal guidance while creating the policies and procedures.
If you are using telematics in your vehicles, then creating a telematics policy brings efficiency and productivity to your fleet business.
Sushanthi
Sushanthi is a Content Writer who wishes to be the voice of brands to project their innovative ideas and stories through her writing skills.