The volatile price of fuel is one of the biggest challenges fleets face on a day-to-day basis. While carriers have little control over what they pay at the pump, they do have the ability to influence driver behavior. Carriers can save big by incentivizing fuel-efficient behaviors on the road.
There are a variety of solutions on the market aimed at increasing fuel efficiency by monitoring driver performance. Most of these programs either reward or reprimand drivers based largely on their miles per gallon.
The problem lies in the fact that a wide array of factors outside the driver’s control contribute to that miles-per-gallon statistic.
“Many people want to rate fuel efficiency using just miles-per-gallon performance. That’s really not completely in a driver’s control,” Lloyd Palum, CTO of Tenstreet’s True Fuel Division, said. “They have a certain model year and make of vehicles and a certain amount of freight that they have to pull over a certain set of routes with varying road conditions. All of that is being dictated to a large extent by the fleet’s capital structure and book of business.”
Rewarding or reprimanding drivers based on a metric that they do not have complete control over leads to discouragement and frustration, both harming the carrier-driver relationship and reducing drivers’ desire to make fuel-efficient changes at all. In this way, traditional fuel incentive programs can backfire and actually reduce efficiency.
Tenstreet designed its fuel efficiency program, True Fuel, to be a truly driver-friendly alternative. Instead of focusing on overall miles per gallon, True Fuel monitors specific driver behaviors that are proven to impact fuel economy.
“We measure the things that the driver can have a direct impact on and omit the things that are not in the driver’s control,” Palum said. “The things that are in a driver’s control still make a huge difference, accounting for up to 30% of fuel economy impact.”
True Fuel’s strong emphasis on education empowers drivers to start making more fuel-efficient decisions immediately. For example, drivers who understand the outsize impact of acceleration, speed management and consistency on fuel waste are less likely to waste fuel in ways that are in their control.
“Drivers have visibility into their performance, they have tools to learn how to improve, and they can monitor the adjustments that they’re making in their day-to-day behavior by looking at their data,” Palum said.
This focus on driver-led improvement translates to near-overnight savings for carriers.
One True Fuel customer reduced fuel consumption by 1% in less than a month on the program. For a fleet of 300 trucks, reducing fuel consumption by even 1% translates to about 15,000 saved gallons. That is a lot of bucks at the pump.
According to Ethan Sweeney, director of partner success for True Fuel, that result is not an outlier among True Fuel customers.
“Over the lifetime of a customer, we typically see between a 3-10% reduction in their overall fuel spend,” Sweeney said. “Depending on the size of the fleet, that can be really significant. And it starts within the first week.”
True Fuel is fully woven into Tenstreet’s wider suite of offerings. This makes introducing drivers to the program especially simple for carriers already utilizing other Tenstreet solutions. Additionally, True Fuel can be tied in with a carrier’s existing safety or rewards program, increasing the effectiveness of every product involved.
Click here to learn more about Tenstreet’s True Fuel.
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