Use fuel reporting to identify clear fuel program goals

Problem to solve:

GP Transco wanted to reduce fuel costs across their fleet in a programmatic way but the team was having trouble identifying the leading causes of fuel waste.

How they solved it:

Jonas Bidva, GP Transco’s VP of Operations, used Samsara’s Driver Efficiency Report to identify a data-backed goal for their fuel efficiency program.

Here’s how Bidva did it: 

01. Use the Driver Efficiency Report to understand current fuel usage and potential key areas for improvements. Select the time period you want to investigate (>60 days) and examine how your fleet is performing across the attributes. Note attributes with particularly low score (closer to 0) where improvements is possible. For GP, idling was a key area where fuel efficiency scores could improve.

02. Determine whether this is an issue across your entire fleet or just for a few drivers. Scroll down in the report to see your list of drivers and click the parameter to focus on specific areas or behaviors. If the same inefficient behavior is occurring with >50% of drivers, this area might be a good candidate for improvement.

03. Start to understand the estimated impact of your improvement by also checking idling as a percentage of drive time in the Fuel and Energy report to estimate costs. Go to the Fuel Usage Report and select “Drivers” from the upper left. Sort by Idling time so you can see your biggest idlers. Multiply the ‘Idle Time %’ column by ‘Estimated Cost’ or by ‘Fuel Used’ to calculate estimated fuel wasted.

04. Use this as a north star for building a fuel program. As a start, set a goal for improvements based on your current baseline. For example, GP Transco aimed for a 5% improvement in MPG by reducing idling.

Bonus: Once you’ve been able to identify 1-2 key areas for fuel usage improvement, check out our step-by-step guide for building a fuel program.

Result

By using the Samsara Efficiency Report to analyze driving behavior, GP Transco was able to pinpoint areas for impact and build a Fuel Leaders program that offered incentives to the top 50% of drivers. As a result, they cut idling and saved $350,000 in annual fuel costs—money that was funneled back to drivers.