How Can I Reduce Fuel Costs for My Work Vans?
Fuel is one of the biggest day-to-day running costs for many businesses operating vans and company vehicles.
When fuel prices rise, it's tempting to focus only on finding the cheapest place to fill up. But the price at the pump is only part of the story.
The bigger question is:
How efficiently are your vehicles actually being used?
Unnecessary journeys, excessive idling, inefficient driving, poor route decisions and vehicles being used when a nearer one was available can all increase fuel consumption.
GPS vehicle tracking software can help you identify those patterns using information from your own vehicles — so you can see where fuel may be being wasted and decide what to do about it.
Where does unnecessary fuel use come from?
Every business is different, but common areas worth investigating include:
- Unnecessary mileage
- Repeated or inefficient journeys
- Excessive engine idling
- Inefficient driving behaviour
- Poor vehicle allocation
- Vehicles travelling further than necessary between jobs
- Maintenance issues affecting vehicle efficiency
Without information, these things can be difficult to spot.
A few unnecessary miles here and ten minutes of idling there may not look significant in isolation.
Multiply them across several vehicles, five working days a week and an entire year, and the picture can become very different.
Can GPS tracking show how much fuel my vans are using?
Yes — where the vehicle, tracker and configuration support the required data, the Global Trackers platform can provide fuel-consumption information.
That allows a business to look beyond simply knowing where its vans are.
Fuel information can be considered alongside journeys, mileage, routes, idling and vehicle activity to build a clearer picture of how efficiently vehicles are being operated.
Not every vehicle exposes exactly the same information, so if fuel monitoring is particularly important to you, tell us what vehicles you operate and we'll help establish what data can be available.
How can tracking help reduce unnecessary mileage?
One of the simplest ways to reduce fuel use is to avoid driving miles that didn't need to be driven in the first place.
Vehicle tracking lets you see where your vans are and review where they've travelled.
Imagine an urgent customer calls.
Without vehicle visibility, you might automatically send the person you normally use for that type of job.
With your vehicles visible on a map, you may discover that another suitable van is already nearby.
That doesn't mean the software makes every dispatch decision for you.
It means you have better information when making the decision.
Across a busy week, repeatedly choosing the nearest appropriate vehicle can reduce unnecessary mileage.
Can GPS tracking show engine idling?
Where the appropriate tracker, installation and vehicle data are available, the Global Trackers platform can provide information about engine idling.
For petrol and diesel vehicles, unnecessary idling burns fuel while the vehicle isn't going anywhere.
A few minutes may seem insignificant.
But if several vans regularly sit with their engines running, that wasted fuel can accumulate across a month or year.
Tracking information can help businesses identify patterns of excessive idling rather than relying on guesswork.
Where supported and configured, alerts can also help bring particular events to your attention.
Can I see which drivers or vehicles are using fuel inefficiently?
Where supported by the tracking setup, the Global Trackers platform can provide driver-behaviour information.
This can help a business identify patterns in the way vehicles are being operated.
The purpose doesn't have to be about catching somebody doing something wrong.
It can be about understanding:
Why is this vehicle consistently using more fuel?
Why does this route cost more to operate?
Is unnecessary idling contributing to the problem?
Are there driving patterns we could improve?
Having information gives you something constructive to work with rather than simply telling everybody to “use less fuel”.
Can journey history help reduce fuel costs?
Yes.
Journey history allows you to look back at where vehicles have travelled rather than only seeing their current location.
Over time, this can reveal patterns.
Perhaps two vans regularly make similar journeys.
Maybe a vehicle repeatedly returns to base unnecessarily.
Perhaps jobs could be allocated differently.
Or you may discover that the routes being driven are perfectly sensible and the problem lies somewhere else.
That's valuable too.
Good tracking information isn't only about finding problems. It can also confirm that parts of your operation are already working efficiently.
Can GPS tracking help with route planning?
Tracking information can help you make better-informed route and job-allocation decisions.
It shows where your vehicles are and where they have travelled.
For a small service business, that can be particularly useful when jobs change during the day.
Rather than relying entirely on schedules created first thing in the morning, you can use current vehicle locations when deciding who should attend an additional job.
Again, GPS tracking isn't magic route optimisation by itself.
It's visibility that helps you make better decisions.
Can vehicle maintenance affect fuel use?
Yes. Vehicle condition can affect operating efficiency.
The Global Trackers platform can help businesses manage maintenance and servicing information, making it easier to keep important vehicle requirements visible.
For a business running several vehicles, that's useful because maintenance dates and requirements can otherwise end up spread across diaries, spreadsheets, paperwork or somebody's memory.
Keeping vehicles properly maintained has benefits beyond fuel consumption too — including reliability and reducing avoidable disruption.
Can tracking show my fleet's CO₂ information?
Where supported by the relevant vehicle and tracking configuration, the Global Trackers platform can provide CO₂ information.
This can help businesses that want to understand the environmental impact associated with their vehicle use.
CO₂ information becomes more useful when considered alongside other data such as fuel consumption, mileage, journeys and vehicle activity.
That can help a business measure rather than simply make broad claims about becoming more environmentally responsible.
What about electric vans?
Electric vehicles don't consume petrol or diesel and have no tailpipe emissions, but efficient vehicle use still matters.
An electric van still consumes energy and has a limited driving range before it needs charging.
Journey and vehicle-use information can therefore be useful for EVs too.
Tracking can help you understand:
- How far vehicles actually travel
- Which journeys they regularly make
- How often they return to base
- Which vehicles have predictable daily usage
- Whether unnecessary mileage is occurring
- Where vehicles are during the working day
This can also provide useful evidence when a business is considering which existing vehicles might be suitable to replace with electric ones.
Can tracking tell me whether a van is suitable to replace with an EV?
Tracking information can help with that decision.
Imagine you're considering replacing five diesel vans.
Rather than guessing which ones could realistically be electric, you can look at how they're actually used.
A van that travels predictable local routes and regularly returns to base may present a very different EV opportunity from one that frequently makes long, unpredictable journeys.
Tracking doesn't make the purchasing decision for you.
It gives you real-world journey information from your own business to use when making it.
How much could GPS tracking save me on fuel?
There isn't an honest single percentage we can promise.
The potential saving depends on things such as:
- How many vehicles you operate
- How much fuel they currently use
- How efficiently they're already being driven
- How much unnecessary mileage exists
- How much idling occurs
- Whether you act on the information the platform provides
A business already operating an extremely efficient fleet may have relatively little waste to remove.
A business that discovers substantial unnecessary mileage or idling may have considerably more opportunity.
The important point is that tracking gives you information from which to make those decisions.
How much does it cost to track my work vans?
Global Trackers' current vehicle tracking subscription is £5.99 per tracker per month including VAT.
For example:
- 2 vehicles — £11.98 per month
- 3 vehicles — £17.97 per month
- 5 vehicles — £29.95 per month
- 10 vehicles — £59.90 per month
There is also the initial cost of the tracking device.
That means a business can compare the actual cost of tracking with what it currently spends operating its vehicles.
For full pricing information, see How Much Does a Car Tracker Cost in the UK?
Do I need a complicated fleet-management system?
Not necessarily.
If you're running a small business with a handful of vans, you may simply want answers to questions such as:
Where are my vehicles?
Which van is closest to this customer?
How much fuel are we using?
Are vehicles sitting idling unnecessarily?
Where did this van go yesterday?
Could we reduce some of these miles?
That's very different from needing an enormous corporate fleet-management operation.
Global Trackers is designed to make tracking useful without making it unnecessarily complicated.
If your first question is simply how to see several vehicles together, read How Can I Track All My Work Vans?
So, can GPS tracking really help reduce fuel costs?
Yes — if you use the information it gives you.
Installing a tracker doesn't automatically reduce your fuel bill.
What it can do is show you what's happening.
You can use information about fuel consumption, journeys, mileage, idling, vehicle locations and driver behaviour to identify where improvements may be possible.
Then you decide what to change.
That might mean reducing unnecessary journeys, allocating jobs differently, addressing excessive idling, improving driving behaviour or keeping maintenance better organised.
When fuel costs are putting pressure on a business, knowing where the money is actually going is a much better starting point than guessing.
If you want to know what information Global Trackers can provide for your particular vehicles, tell us what you operate and what you're trying to improve. We'll help you work out which tracker and configuration is appropriate.