Raising awareness around fuel usage within your organisation is one of the “easy wins” to make a positive impact on your bottom line and save money.
If that isn’t motivation enough, saving fuel also has a positive impact on the environment, reduces oil dependence costs, and increases energy sustainability.
We’ve covered some ways you can make substantial fuel savings across your fleet of vehicles before.
However, there are also a number of things individual drivers can do to reduce fuel consumption. Here are some of the more impactful driving techniques and behaviors that can save a noticeable amount of fuel:
Be Light-Footed on the Accelerator
I hate to say it, but company vehicle drivers are the most guilty when it comes to putting their foot to the floor.
Excessive accelerating and overall speeding are the largest contributing factors to excessive fuel usage.
The most effective way to increase mpg usage is to use the highest possible gear and to accelerate slowly. This might not go down well when you tell your drivers running a tight schedule, but there’s a definite trade-off that can work as a win-win.
Use Momentum to Your Advantage
This is highly dependent on the traffic conditions, but being able to flow with momentum means you’re using the accelerator pedal less.
Such as cruising on a decline, allowing the vehicle to slow for a slip road, and so on.
It’s important to remain in gear when doing this, don’t be tempted to coast in neutral. Not only is this more dangerous as you don’t have as much control over breaking, but modern vehicles have a fuel cut-off switch when in gear anyway.
Go Easy on the Air Conditioning
I’m not suggesting you make the inside of your vehicle anything less than comfortable, but switching off the AC when it’s really not needed will also save fuel.
Depending on the vehicle, how far you have your AC turned up, and some other factors, it’s estimated that using air-con can add up to 10% to fuel consumption.
Don’t Leave Your Vehicle Idling When Not Necessary
If you’re doing the kind of work that means you’re idling a lot, whether this is in traffic or when you’re exiting the vehicle, you should probably be switching the engine off.
It’s estimated that just two minutes of idling is equivalent to driving one mile in fuel usage. Not only does the fuel usage add up, but the additional wear and tear on the engine will also lead to increased usage and other maintenance costs over the life of the vehicle.
Use Cruise Control Where Possible
Cruise control will save fuel when driving long distances on a flat surface without the need to change gears, speed up, or slow down. So, motorway driving, in particular.
It’s estimated that just 34% of people use cruise control where possible. It’s one of the most underutilised forms of fleet technology we have available.
Fleet Management Software Holds the Answers
If you’re serious about saving money and having a positive impact on the environment by reducing fuel consumption within your organisation, fleet management software holds all the answers.
With accurate reporting, you can monitor fuel usage for each individual vehicle as well as across your fleet as a whole.
This gives you the ability to identify where you can make fuel savings, as well as tracking the results with real measurable data.
We’ve built in a number of tools and reporting options within our FleetCheck software that hundreds of fleet managers have used to make fuel savings.
You can schedule a demo or a call with one of our team here if you want to discuss how FleetCheck fleet management software can help you save fuel amongst the various other benefits a robust software offers fleet managers.
