Vehicle idling happens when the vehicle is not moving with the engine kept on. This can happen when you are in a traffic signal or you have stopped temporarily during an emergency on the shoulder of the road. This can also happen while you are loading or unloading refrigerated cargo.

But this can also happen when the driver takes an unscheduled nap keeping the air conditioning on.

One of the most effective methods to reduce your fleet fuel bill is to control vehicle idling. Especially the “nap” ones. Many systems offer a notification service which can pop up a mobile notification on a supervisor’s smartphone. Some companies with a dedicated operations centre keep the fleet management screen open on large displays where these idle notifications can pop up. Either way, such real-time notifications enable an organization to call up the drivers to interrupt such unscheduled vehicle idling occurrences.

Different idling durations can be separately monitored. For example, we can have separate monitoring for 10 minutes idling and 20 minutes idling.

It has been seen that companies who started monitoring the vehicle idling statuses closely were able to achieve up to 30% reduction in their annual fuel bills. This might seem incredible, but it is a proven fact. Once the drivers are aware that their idling can be monitored, they automatically reduce these incidents even without the company having to take any punitive measures. Monitoring often brings a behavioural change which makes the fleet more productive.