September 7, 2011 – 5:55 am
This year FieldLogix, an eco-friendly fleet tracking system, launched an online Fuel Efficiency Driver Training Program. The program has been quite a success. Drivers, fleet managers and business owners have all found the driver training program to be quite valuable.
Companies using the FieldLogix fleet tracking system have access to their proprietary Green Fleet Reports to monitor driver performance and improvements over time.
Driver training that targets fuel efficiency can help recognize and change driving habits that waste fuel. Even drivers with years behind the wheel can improve their skills and driving performance through fuel efficiency driver training programs.
August 19, 2011 – 1:43 am
Stop Wasting Money on Excess Idling With FieldLogix Fleet GPS
Did you know that each year fleet vehicles burn 8.9 billion gallons of fuel annually due to unnecessary idling and speeding? Chances are each of your vehicles burns up to 800 gallons of fuel per year due to unnecessary idling alone, which costs an estimated $2,864 per vehicle annually based on current gas prices of $3.58 a gallon.
Excessive idling is a tried and true fuel waster and is extraordinarily common in truck fleets, where frequent stops and starts are common.
The FieldLogix Customized Green Report identifies which vehicles are wasting time and money on excessive idling and speeding. The Excessive Fuel Report calculates how much money this is costing and shows how much CO2 is being emitted due to these avoidable driving habits. The green reporting features give each vehicle a Green Score and ranks each driver by who is most efficient.
FieldLogix Fleet GPS can you exactly how long a vehicle or group of vehicles has been idling – in real time or via minute-by-minute reports. You can see online where a vehicle was parked at each idling session, overlaid on familiar Google Maps. When enabled, idle alerts can be requested over the next 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 or 60 minutes, or set to alert you every 10 minutes via cell phone text message or email.
A new satellite communication for oceanic flights has been approved by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). Now airlines can use the satellite communication to fly through the Polar Regions instead of around them, while still maintaining communication with air traffic control.
Until now, airlines had no way of communicating in the Polar Region besides using a High Frequency (HF) radio, which is so unreliable that airlines decided not to use it because it was too dangerous. Now, being able to fly over the poles, airlines can save time and money. Plus they will produce less pollution.
According to Damien McCormack, director of Aircraft Solutions at SITA, flying over the poles can save approximately 30 minutes to an hour in flight time, depending on the size of the aircraft, flight route and exactly what points over the Poles the plane is flying.
McCormack also said that by saving one hour on an airbus 330, which can accommodate up to 335 passengers, it can account to a savings of 5.5 tons of fuel, which equates to 17 tons of C02 emissions. With a Boeing 747, which can accommodate between 416-524 passengers, saving one hour of flying time would account to saving 10 tons of fuel, which equates to 35 tons of C02 emissions.
When a vehicle is left idling, it can consume one gallon of gas each hour. “Traffic congestion costs the U.S. economy upwards of $155 billion dollars annually,” said Kleiner Perkins partner Michael Linse in a statement. “Last year alone, U.S. drivers wasted 3.9 billion gallons of fuel sitting idle in traffic, and the U.S. is a small part of a much larger and growing global traffic problem.”
No one likes wasting time and money sitting in traffic. Sometimes it is unavoidable, but sometimes it isn’t. With today’s high cost of fuel and the growing awareness of our need to protect our planet, the amount of idling vehicles must be reduced. Drivers can and should be doing something.
A GPS navigation system with real-time traffic updates such as FieldLogix can absolutely help to reduce the time and money drivers waste sitting in traffic. Reducing idling time by only 15 minutes a day can reduce fuel use by over $84 per year. If you reduce idling time by 60 minutes a day, it would result in a fuel savings of 90 gallons at a cost of over $339 per year.
Fleet GPS tracking technology can be one of the most cost effective means to manage fuel consumption. A GPS fleet management system can help the average fleet reduce fuel costs by up to 20%.
FieldLogix fleet GPS can put a spotlight on a driver’s habits that consume excessive fuel and emit unnecessary pollution.
According to Jonathan Haar of 4 Seasons Landscape Services, “I am so pleased with FieldLogix. It is an awesome product with an excellent installation process and incredible service…. We initially focused on drivers’ habits such as speed and idle time that have a huge impact on fuel usage. However, we were also able to use FieldLogix to improve routing. By making more efficient use of our vehicles, we lowered the average number of miles driven per vehicle, further reducing our fuel expenses.”
New York City will be adding 70 electric vehicles to its police vehicle fleet as a part of an initiative to make the city more green. The city already has 360 electric vehicles currently being used by police. NYC has also launched new efforts to inform the public about the benefits of electric vehicles. The new vehicles include 50 Chevrolet Volts, ten Ford Transit Connect electric cargo vans, and ten electric Navistar E-Star utility trucks.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced that the city’s new batch of electric vehicles includes 50 new “extended range” hybrid Chevrolet Volts, 10 fully electric Ford Transit Connect cargo vans, and 10 new fully electric Navi-star “E-star” utility trucks.
Faced with the impact of rising fuel costs on the city budget, local leaders are realizing the importance of “going green” and utilizing a fleet GPS tracking system.
Dozens of cities across America are facing the same challenge: the effects of rising fuel costs. In Albany, NY the cost of keeping the city government’s fleet of vehicles on the road during the next fiscal year will increase by nearly $2 million because of rising fuel costs, officials recently said. That figure is up from the $1.6 million the city spent this last calendar year on fuel for its vehicles.
Albany Mayor Willie Adams used the fuel discussion to reiterate his position that every city vehicle needs to have some sort of Global Positioning System, or GPS tracking system, to monitor their whereabouts to ensure they aren’t traveling when they aren’t supposed to be.
“Nearly every corporation in the country has some kind of GPS or AVL (automatic vehicle location) device,” Adams said. “We’re a corporation and we need to keep track of our vehicles. That’s something I’d like to see on all of our vehicles.”
For Ryder, the decision to invest in a green fleet of natural gas vehicles is paying off. The company just reported that it is seeing a big increase in demand for its natural gas vehicles. A growing number of businesses are transitioning their fleets to run on compressed natural gas (CNG) or liquefied natural gas (LNG) as alternatives to gasoline and diesel because natural gas vehicles burn less fuel and produce less emissions.
Ryder (NYSE: R), a leader in commercial transportation and supply chain management solutions, announced last week that it has secured lease agreements for 87 heavy-duty natural gas trucks from customers looking to take advantage of the fuel cost savings and environmental benefits of alternative fuel powered vehicles. According to Ryder, natural gas is a domestic resource and it is 25 percent cleaner than the cleanest diesel. When your company commits to going Green with CNG vehicles, you demonstrate corporate and environmental responsibility and business savvy.
“Corporate and government fleets are the strongest adopters of natural gas vehicles” said Dave Hurst, senior analyst for Pike Research, which recently published a report analyzing global clean technology markets. “More and more fleet managers are attracted to the lower fuel costs of natural gas, in addition to the opportunity to reduce their vehicles’ carbon footprint.”
A large portion on the new truck order is part of the Ryder/San Bernardino Associated Governments (SANBAG) Natural Gas Vehicle project – a joint public/private partnership between the U.S. Department of Energy, the California Energy Commission, San Bernardino Associated Governments, Southern California Association of Governments, and Ryder. The $38.7 million project includes a total of 202 natural gas vehicles available for lease or rent, three strategically located natural gas compliant maintenance shops in Southern California, and two fueling stations. Ryder took delivery of 70 vehicles in May and is expected to have the balance of the full 202 SANBAG natural gas vehicle order in its green fleet by the end of 2011.
FedEx Express, a subsidiary of FedEx (NYSE: FDX) that handles time-sensitive shipments, announced last week it will double its electric vehicle fleet and add more than 4,000 new fuel-efficient vehicles to its conventional fleet.
Over the next two months the company will expand its green fleet by putting 24 all-electric vehicles (EVs) on the road. Once these are all deployed, FedEx Express will have a green fleet of 43 electric vehicles in service. The new EVs will operate in New York City, Chicago, and Memphis.
The company is currently running 19 all-electric vehicles in Los Angeles, London, and Paris.
On high-mileage routes, FedEx is replacing 4,000 vans with fuel-efficient, low-emitting clean diesel Sprinter vehicles that are 100 percent more fuel efficient than conventional vans, according to Keshav Sondhi, FedEx Express asset manager.
“Since launching our first Sprinter in 2000, we have put close to 1.4 billion miles on these more fuel-efficient vehicles, saving over 66 million gallons of fuel compared to their predecessors,” he said.
An all-new Green GPS system, developed by computer scientists at the University of Illinois, is able to calculate the most fuel-efficient driving routes, saving as much as 13 percent over other routes in initial tests.
“Unlike existing Internet services, such as Google Maps and MapQuest, which provide either the fastest or the shortest route between two points, a Green GPS system collects the necessary information to compute … the most fuel-efficient route” explained Ph.D. candidate Raghu Kiran Ganti, one of three student researchers working with Principal Investigator and Associate Professor of Computer Science Tarek Abdelzaher. “The most fuel-efficient route between two points may be different from the shortest and fastest routes.”
For example, taking the fast route on a freeway may not be economical because fuel consumption increases in a non-linear manner with speed, or because the route is longer. Similarly, the shortest route, over city streets, may be objectionable because of downtown congestion and traffic.
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