The Importance of Reporting and Analysis in Fleet Management

In a state of constant planning, routing, and tracking, you may find that there is little time for analyzing. Reporting/Analyzing is an important part of the fleet management business, and one that owners and key stakeholders often struggle with. Most of the time, data is either nonexistent or all over the place and you spend way too much time collecting it. Once gathered, you enter it all in by hand and try to make the right graphs or you try to figure out how to run analyses, etc. It’s not always easy to determine what data to look at and the story it tells.

As challenging as it may be, it’s no surprise that insightful reporting along with effective analysis can make a real impact on your ROI. The greatest opportunity to increase revenue comes from being able to focus on what your drivers are doing no matter which vehicle they use on a given day by utilizing route scheduling software. To get this type of insight you need data and reports, which serve as tools to accurately measure your fleet’s performance, thereby giving you a competitive edge.

Let’s take a look at reports that allow for full visibility into your vehicles, drivers and jobs. The following are some examples of tools, reports, and analysis that provide insight into your operations from both a Micro and Macro level:

Planned vs Actual

This is a report that can be pulled daily, weekly or even monthly to provide deep insights into your drivers. It specifically shows you the comparison of the scheduled work order to the time the driver arrived at the designated stop. If things don’t match-up or if this is a regular pattern, this information will alert you to dive in deeper to determine what caused the issue. To generate this type of report your drivers would need to be using a mobile app to record arrival/departure. There is route planning software available that provides a mobile app with these features, such as Route Manager (yes, shameless plug). With this report you will gain awareness on situations with your fleet, such as: drivers driving too slow, route profiles that need tweaking, etc.

GPS Tracking

Set-up personalized alerts for events that could affect your routes’ performance. Once you have GPS tracking in place you’ll be able to confirm location details, ensuring your drivers are running the designated plans in the correct sequence. This is all made possible with geo-coded timestamps and GPS reports. It’s now easier to report on time spent on the job, routes that may cause issues throughout the day, and gain complete visibility with GPS tracking layered on top of your route plans.

Proof of Delivery

Record and report on event details like photo captures, customer signatures, and driver notes through your fleet scheduling software. You can use this information to settle customer claims or confirm delivery. Is a driver unable to complete an order? Report on orders that need to be rescheduled – making your office more efficient. Are you looking for more detail to answer customer questions? With this level of tracking, you can see the execution and event details to respond faster. And, now you know your driver properly executed the order with geotags associated to every file to confirm location accuracy.

All-in-all, our goal is to empower fleet managers, like you, to be able to measure every metric within your operation, ultimately providing the tools for maximum efficiency for routing and scheduling.

Let us help you Plan, Route, Track and Analyze today.