Increasing the fuel efficiency of your fleet

If running vehicles is a necessary part of your business, ensuring that your fleet vehicles are as fuel efficient as possible can really benefit your business financially. This week we’ve put together out guide for improving the fuel efficiency of the cars and vans in your vehicle fleet.

Have a preventative maintenance schedule
When managing a fleet vehicle a proactive approach will ensure that your vehicles run more efficiently. Dirty air filters can clog an engine's air supply, causing an increase in fuel consumption. Equally, misaligned tyres can cause fuel wastage due to tyres ‘fighting’ each other and pulling in different directions. As part of our preventative maintenance packages we carry out the necessary checks to ensure your vehicles are safe, and running as cost efficiently as possible.

Ensure tyres are correctly inflated
Monitoring tyre pressures is an easy way to prevent unnecessary fuel consumption. Under inflated tyres not only increase fuel consumption, they reduce tyre tread life and can have serious safety implications.

Optimise journeys
If there are regular routes used by your fleet take time to identify the most efficient route, as this will not only make your vehicles more fuel efficient, but can help save time too. Sometimes the shortest routes are not always the most efficient, for example if there are pockets of traffic at certain times. Use the insight from employees who spend time out on the roads, and encourage them to suggest more efficient alternative routes when applicable.

Educate drivers to improve driving habits
Aggressive driving, fast acceleration and harsh braking all increase fuel consumption and should be discouraged. Weaving in and out of traffic will not only waste fuel, but will result in faster wear of tyres and brakes and can put other road users at risk. Additionally, reducing the speed at which your fleet travels will increase fuel increase efficiency. For example, travelling at 85mph instead of 70mph can increase fuel consumption by at least 25%.  

Avoid running vehicles unnecessarily
This may seem like an obvious way to increase fuel efficiency, but all too often drivers leave their vehicles idling in an attempt to save time. The UK Vehicle Certification Agency states that idling has a significant impact on fuel consumption and CO2 emissions. Restarting an engine uses approximately the same amount of fuel as idling for 30 seconds, therefore it is advisable to switch the engine off if the vehicle will be static for more than a minute.

Eliminate unnecessary weight 
All too often drivers who use the same vehicle every day accumulate equipment, tools or just items that generally don’t need to be kept in the vehicle. Excess weight will increase fuel consumption, and put additional pressure on the vehicle. Encourage employees to empty their vehicles of unnecessary items on a regular basis to help avoid this problem.

Can we help you?
Here at A&D Group we help local businesses keep their fleet maintenance costs down, and their vehicles on the road. If you’d like your vehicles looked at, we can identify any opportunities for increasing fuel efficiency. Give us a call to find out about our preventative fleet maintenance services.