Timely telematics advice

Date: Thursday, May 28, 2009

Van owners looking to invest in a tracking system should check the financial health of their chosen provider before they sign any agreement. If they don’t then the consequences could be disastrous warns Martin Davies, a director of tracking specialist Remote Asset Management (RAM).

“If the firm goes bust then you could be left high and dry, with no service,” he says. What’s more, if the package you’ve chosen is leased through a third party then you could be obliged to keep making the lease payments without receiving any benefits in return.

His warning isn’t directed solely at major fleets. Even relatively small operators are discovering the advantages of being able to keep tabs on the activities of all their vans round the clock, Davies points out. “Our customers have an average fleet size of just seven vehicles,” he reveals.

No matter how large a company is, being able to direct the nearest available van to a customer and monitor fuel consumption, speeding, and a host of other factors gives it the same degree of control over its drivers that it has over its office staff, he says. As a consequence it can save thousands of pounds annually, he contends.

“Remember that a small van typically costs £20.52 an hour to run including the driver’s wages, insurance, maintenance and fuel,” Davies continues. Lose an hour’s productivity a day — and that’s easy to do if proper control isn’t exercised — and you’ve lost over £100 a week. “If you charge your time out at, say, £35 an hour, then you’ve also said good-bye to a fortune in lost earnings,” he adds.

The ability to track vehicles accurately brings security advantages and can prove to be a boon if there is a dispute over when goods were delivered. The system will record exactly when a van arrived at the customer’s premises and exactly when it left, says Davies. “It gives you an audit trail,” he observes.

It’s a facility that will also tell you precisely when the driver started and finished work when he took his breaks, whether he went off his usual route and whether or not he entered the London congestion charge zone. Because RAM’s system is web-based, managers can access the data from anywhere with internet access anywhere in the world. “All it costs you is £1.00 per van per day,” says Davies.

Invest in a software package such as RAM’s Boardroom and you can analyse the performance of all your drivers and see which ones are the best; and which the worst. Armed with that data you can take appropriate action; to your company’s benefit.

Click here to visit the Remote Access management web site for more information.

What Van? Britain's biggest and best van buyers' guide