One thing we like to do here at Telematics is show some of the world’s best testimonials for the technology. Take property improvement firm Axis for example. It recently announced that by introducing telematics it had managed to cut back on its fuel usage by an impressive 20 per cent.
This wasn’t an improvement that was earned over night however, as it took the Axis team a whole five months of tweaks and adjustments to make it work, but after that near-half year, it was able to improve the efficiency of its drivers through sending the nearest worker to the job, as well as keeping a much better eye on vehicle wear. Perhaps the biggest change however was to driver habits. With onboard telematics checking whether they were accelerating or braking too sharply, as well as whether they speed, Axis was able to make big in-roads into its fuel usage and save the firm money – as well as make it far greener in the process.
“This is a massive achievement for us in such a short time,” said Helen Craig, head of sustainability and facilities at Axis Europe (via FleetNews).
“Without TomTom Webfleet we wouldn’t be able to measure our success so accurately due to the ever-changing nature of our stock. We have already exceeded our 5% improvement target for the year.”
In-fact, it went as far as 20 per cent improvement already, with the average fuel economy of each Axis van going from 33 miles per gallon to 39. While this might not be a big deal on one or two vehicles, when you factor in that that’s across Axis’ 241 vans and trucks, that’s over a thousand miles saved on just a single gallon for each vehicle. Extrapolate that over an entire year and you’re looking at tens of thousands of “free” miles for Axis and many pounds in saved costs.
This was all achieved with the TomTom OptiDrive indicator, which while not being as popular as some of the telematics provider’s packages, offers fuel efficiency information, as well as drive profiling that takes into consideration speed, acceleration, braking, idle time, aggressive handling and other data. Drivers are then scored out of 10 and ranked against one another, allowing Axis management to crack down on who needs it and praise those who don’t.
This is something we’ve seen in a lot of heavy fleet companies over the past few years. It’s making drivers safe too, which is always something we like to hear about.
