Every time a company vehicle goes out on a service call – what fleet managers call a “truck roll” – it can cost up to $75 in fuel, labour and other overhead. IT departments can cut those expenses dramatically, however, by pointing managers to tools that can visually track every vehicle’s location and behaviour in real time – with minimal investment in either time or budget for small and medium sized businesses.
For example: Ottawa-based troo Corp. (formerly Waypoint Information Technology Inc.) specializes in real-time Global Positioning System (GPS) tracking for vehicle fleets. Joel Bisson, the company’s Chief Operating Officer, says fleets as small as two or three vehicles can benefit from trootrack™ (formerly Panorama Tracker), and IT managers can deliver that win quickly for no cash investment.
“We host all the software,” Bisson said. “As long as they have a browser and high-speed Internet access, then basically there is no hit on their IT network.” Right now, he said, there aren’t many software solutions to manage mobile resources, so managers of smaller fleets are pretty much on their own.
“If you manage a plumbing service fleet, and you have a number of people in vans and you are acting as a dispatcher, often they use cell phones,” he said. “This solution lets you look at the exact location of all your vehicles, and then you can optimize which vehicle should be servicing the next call. You’re saving time and fuel.” In some situations, the cost of a second call in the immediate vicinity can drop from $75 to almost zero.
