Work out whether this pays you back.
Not whether it could, in principle, for somebody. The model below runs against your fleet size and vehicle type, nets off what we charge, and will tell you plainly when the answer is no.
Six levers, and which you would really pull
Turn off the ones you know your operation will not do. Most of the dishonesty in this category lives in assuming all six.
Rigids, reefers and vans across regional work
Until the saving has covered the devices. The subscription is already netted off.
- Annual spend modelled
- 2,209,464
- Annual saving
- 320,334
- Subscription, per year
- −44,712
- Devices, once
- −27,600
- Year one, net
- +248,022
- Each year after
- +275,622
- Plan maintenance100,800
- Plan the day65,057
- Cut idling45,179
- Coach driving style40,769
- Stop fuel loss19,569
SAR, excluding VAT. Diesel at 1.66/litre.
Two ends of it
The same model, at the configuration that works and the one that does not. Both come out of the calculator above.
Worth doing
60 heavy vehicles, all six levers
- Annual saving
- 704,687
- Year one, net
- +601,175
- Payback
- 1.1 months
Heavy fleets burn enough diesel that a modest percentage is a large number. This is the easy case, and it is why the category sells.
Do not buy it
20 light vehicles, idling only
- Annual saving
- 4,940
- Year one, net
- −17,420
- Payback
- never
A small fleet of vans that only intends to chase idling is spending more on the software than the idling was costing. Wait until there is a second reason.
What each lever actually needs
Every one of these has a condition attached, and the condition is usually organisational rather than technical. Software makes the problem visible. Somebody still has to act on it.
The four fuel levers compound rather than add. Summed naively they would read 16% of the fuel bill; charged against what the previous ones leave, they come to 15.1%. The second number is the one the model uses.
Cut idling
−4%Engines running at rest, mostly for air conditioning through the summer.
Needs · A shutdown policy drivers accept. Alerts alone move this very little.
Plan the day
−6%Distance that the work did not require, removed by planning rather than dispatching.
Needs · Jobs arriving early enough to plan against. Same-day work does not benefit.
Coach driving style
−4%Harsh acceleration, over-revving and speed above the efficient band.
Needs · Sustained coaching. The gain decays within months if the programme stops.
Stop fuel loss
−2%Siphoning and unaccounted drops that survive because nobody can date them.
Needs · A tank probe. The engine gauge is too coarse to prove a 60-litre loss.
Plan maintenance
−15%Roadside failures and their downtime, converted into scheduled work.
Needs · Workshop capacity to absorb the peak weeks. Otherwise it just moves the queue.
Remove admin and overtime
−12%Hours spent reconciling paper, chasing defects and covering unplanned absence.
Needs · Actually retiring the paper process rather than running both.
What is wrong with this model
Every ROI calculator in this industry is a sales tool. This one is too. Here is where it is weakest, so you can discount it accordingly.
- These are not our measurements
- They are the conservative end of what operators report. We have not audited your fleet, and any vendor quoting a precise figure before doing so is quoting a brochure.
- The levers are not independent
- Better routing reduces the distance that driving style then applies to. Adding the percentages together would overstate it, so each lever is charged against what the ones before it left — the fuel levers compound, they do not sum.
- Most of it needs somebody to act
- Alerts do not cut idling; a policy does. The software makes the problem visible and measurable, which is necessary and not sufficient.
- Some fleets should not buy this
- A small light-vehicle fleet pulling one lever will not clear the hardware cost inside a year. The model will tell you that if you set it up that way.
Heavy
92,000 km/yr · 34 L/100km · maintenance 18,500/yr
Diesel at 1.66 SAR/litre. Change any of these and the answer moves.
Mixed
54,000 km/yr · 21 L/100km · maintenance 11,200/yr
Diesel at 1.66 SAR/litre. Change any of these and the answer moves.
Light
31,000 km/yr · 12 L/100km · maintenance 5,600/yr
Diesel at 1.66 SAR/litre. Change any of these and the answer moves.