Technology helps automate fuel buying and ensure driver compliance with fleet preferences

Although diesel prices have fallen dramatically since last summer, they continue to vary widely across state lines and even street corners. Purchasing fuel at the least cost, each day, is a challenge for one vehicle, let alone an entire fleet. Fuel prices, truck routes, fuel levels, tank capacity and the fuel economy of each vehicle must be considered. You also can’t ignore the impact of fuel taxes, fuel network discounts and drivers’ truckstop preferences.

For more than a decade, fleets have used fuel optimization software to solve this problem and save anywhere from 2 to 12 cents per gallon from their fuel bill. Fleets can set up these systems to translate fuel discounts, networks and other money-saving strategies already in place into actual purchases at the pump. Fleets can optimize their fuel price savings by delegating purchasing decisions fully to the software, but ultimately the ability to ensure drivers will follow those choices determines how much the fleet really saves.

“The value and luxury of high compliance is that we can open up the fuel optimizer to as many truckstops as possible on our network,” says Murry Fitzer, chief executive officer of Florilli Transportation, a 250-truck refrigerated carrier based in West Liberty, Iowa. “That really is the whole point and value of optimization.”

Automated fuel plans
To maximize efficiency, many fleets that have fuel optimization software use it as part of an integrated system for dispatching and routing their drivers.

Many companies have a standard protocol drivers use to request their next trip assignment. When a driver is available for dispatch, he sends a “macro” or standard message from an onboard computer. The computer prompts the driver to enter his current fuel level. The fuel level and vehicle location are sent to a server via wireless communications. The fuel optimization software enters this data and data from other sources into an algorithm that produces a fuel and route plan.