Monitoring and managing fuel

The techniques and maths behind managing fuel costs are extremely simple, however it is the large volume of data, and the accurate collection of the data that often proves to be the problem.

The following provide some key elements of fuel management:

  • Ongoing fuel monitoring - it is important to collect data on every mile, every litre and every pound spent for all vehicles on the fleet. This requires robust administrative systems and focused management, and is where fuel cards can bring added value.
  • Exception reporting - for larger fleets consider exception reports analysing the best and worst 5% - 10% of the fleet. If you can understand why the best employees are cost effective then you can target the worst employees to obtain best of breed results. This gives maximum benefit for least effort.
  • Spot checks of fuel data - this will demonstrate to your employees that you are taking fuel costs seriously and are monitoring them, which on its own can yield cost savings.
  • Frequency and volumes of refuelling - unfortunately fraud can be common with fuel, so look for refuelling irregularities such as an individual vehicle taking on more fuel at any one refuelling event than the vehicle can physically hold. This could indicate filling two cars at once or filling spare fuel canisters, jet skis, boats, etc. Also consider the frequency of refuelling, as again partners' cars can often be refuelled on a company fuel card if no one checks fuel reports.

There are a number of fuel consumption monitoring techniques that can be used to assess individual vehicles and drivers:

  • Against peers in similar vehicles - if there are a number of similar vehicles carrying out similar roles compare fuel economy performance and target the least efficient for improvement.
  • Against manufacturer's official fuel consumption figures - compare the actual fuel economy performance of individual cars against the manufacturer's official combined fuel economy figures. The Energy Saving Trust and Department for Transport have calculated the average vehicle is about 15% less fuel efficient in actual daily use than the official fuel economy figures. This can provide an indication of how well your vehicles and drivers are performing.
  • Against peers in different vehicles but similar roles - this can be used to identify the most fuel efficient vehicle make and model for a specific role as long as you are confident that the drivers' efficiency levels are similar.

It should, however, be appreciated that when comparing light commercial vehicles' fuel economy, careful attention is given to the individual vehicle's load patterns as the vehicle's gross weight will have a marked effect on fuel economy.

Fuel is a very significant element of the cost of running a vehicle and needs careful management. It is one of the few fleet cost areas where savings can be almost immediate, and with the cost of fuel predicted to continue to increase, there has never been a better time to focus on fuel.