Trucking in the Payoffs for GPS Tracking Technology

Application of GPS tracking for fleets has reached a popularity level that almost makes it commonplace. While debates concerning personal preferences and specific employee concern continue to place bumps in the road of complete GPS-controlled tracking and widespread fleet control, most seem to see the theoretical benefits offered and many have opted to give the concept a try.

So now it’s time to ask the big question: Is GPS tracking for fleets actually working?

Mobile Resource Management

GPS tracking operating within the system of the Mobile Resource Management (MRM) created specifically to monitor many aspects of fleets, offers valuable feedback for owners and the general public. With clear statistics and easily accessible reports, evaluation of the efficiency of the MRM in pinpointing specific practices within companies has become much easier and far more error free.

Worth the Investment?

Installing the MRM and opening up the door to the benefits of GPS tracking quality control on the fleet level is obviously an expensive investment. While this expense makes it impossible for many fleet owners to make the investment and many others to hesitate, recent statistics demonstrate that the vast majority of those fleet owners who use the MRM are satisfied with the return of the investment and have actually saved at least as much money as they have spent through the benefits of the MRM.

Breakdown of Measurable Benefits

So, where is this recouping coming from? How can a relatively new GPS tracking technology device so quickly pay for itself and leave so many users satisfied within such a short period of its application and use? Although all the answers still haven’t come in and all the data is still being collected as MRM becomes more popular and widespread, the results that have turned up from recent reports indicate some specific ways that this technology is aiding fleets all across America.

The two most common areas of significant savings currently seem to be in the time management of employees and in the fuel bill of fleets using the MRM with GPS tracking technology. Other benefits that address even broader interests than the fleet company’s alone, such as the environmental concern of the emission of carbon, seem to be emerging through the use of this technology as well.

Employee Efficiency

Within the fleet context, measuring the efficiency of employees takes the form of miles and minutes. Ongoing automated records of minutes spent putting in the miles dramatically increases accountability and accuracy of reporting. Some of the specific ways that this takes place include:

• Positive pressure to achieve


• Documented delays


• Driving details


• Real-time records of complications


• Unbiased reporting of policy conformity

While the ethics of GPS tracking may still be a matter of philosophical debate, the benefits are already beginning to weight the discussion. While GPS tracking with MRM isn’t necessarily targeted at detecting and ejecting poor workers, the motivation provided by the monitoring can benefit hard workers and the slightly more sluggish alike.

For one delivery company, savings related to employee time spent on the road have reached over $120,000. Without the never-tiring monitoring of a MRM, companies and employees may just have no idea how much time some old habits or random routines may be wasting.

The Fuel Fill

Most likely the easiest statistic to track, fuel savings seem to provide the biggest boost for MRM and GPS fleet tracking. Although the specific reasons why tracking would result in this type of savings vary from situation to situation, the results appear to remain consistent about the fact that tracking does indeed stimulate, motivate, and somehow create drastic savings in fuel costs for fleets.

Reducing the amount of time in which a truck remains running while not on the road is one of the aspects that enables this saving as well as providing the eco-friendly benefit of less carbon in the environment. As fuel prices continue to skyrocket without much hope of coming back down again and as concerns for the purity of air in cities and industrial areas continue to increase, savings in both these areas carry a lot of weight and desirability.

Accumulated Benefits

Using these popular categories of benefits and adding in some additional considerations, such as vehicle maintenance savings, the reports from fleet companies using MRM GPS tracking record numbers that seem to leave no question about the accumulated benefits of this system.

As a single example, with statistics from merely three different companies managing fleets of varying sizes, the combined savings for a single year total up to over $340,000.

As data continues to be collected with the expansion of MRM GPS tracking use among fleets, these numbers could become even more astounding. So far, the results that are trucking in seem to indicate that the predictions of benefits are coming true and the investments of fleet owners are paying off.

Trucking in the Payoffs for GPS Tracking Technology