3 Ways to Reduce Your Fleet’s Costs
If you run a business that relies heavily on a fleet of vehicles, it’s likely that one of your biggest challenges and concerns is the costs involved in running the fleet. Whether you require a small fleet of city-friendly cars or a vast fleet of lorries for cross-country journeys, it can be tough to find practical ways to reduce fleet costs.
To help you work out exactly where you can make savings, Transcare has come up with some of their top tips for reducing your fleet costs and making your overall operations more cost-effective.
Find a fuel card provider
Having a fuel card is a great way to save money when managing a fleet of vehicles. If you don’t already have one, you should seriously consider researching providers and getting a deal that works for your business.
Even if you do already have a fuel card provider, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t keep your eyes peeled for a better one. You should always ensure that you’re getting the best deal on your fuel – if you don’t, you will be wasting valuable money and will probably end up paying more than your competitors.
Shopping around for the deal that best suits your fleet’s requirements is a practical and low-effort way to make long-term savings on fuel. While the savings may seem insignificant to begin with, these will add up over time and end up reducing your costs quite considerably.
Know when to update your fleet
The costs associated with running a vehicle increase as the vehicle ages. Therefore, replacing your fleet vehicles every now and then can help to lower overall costs by reducing downtime, the need for maintenance and repairs, fuel consumption, and the chances of safety risks occurring.
Developing an effective vehicle replacement plan will require some time and effort initially, but it can provide significant long-term savings for your fleet – especially if you get a good deal when the time comes to sell up. Creating such a plan involves making a detailed inventory of your fleet, establishing parameters for when to replace vehicles (e.g. when maintenance costs exceed a certain figure in the space of 6 months), and estimating associated costs.
Choose a cost-effective maintenance provider
When done right, external servicing and maintenance services can save fleets money. However, the costs can also get out of hand when the maintenance provider is not managed effectively. In order to ensure your maintenance programme is efficient, cost-effective, and makes no sacrifices on quality, you should:
- Require authorisation for all repair tasks (or repairs of a certain difficulty level)
- Conduct regular quality checks
- Create a schedule for routine/preventative maintenance
- Set KPIs upon hiring a maintenance provider (e.g. time taken, quality of service)
- Review all invoices to ensure accuracy and legitimacy
At Transcare, we provide a cost-effective, efficient and comprehensive service designed to help you optimise your fleet. With fleet maintenance and onsite repairs for trucks and trailers available for fleets of all sizes, we are sure to have something that works for you. We also offer a specialist 24-hour breakdown service and mobile repair facilities for emergency situations.
Our experienced and knowledgeable team are well-equipped to keep your fleet running smoothly without breaking the bank! Contact us today for more information.
