Are you effectively tracking and evaluating the total cost of your Private Truck Fleet Operations?
Typical Costs of Operating a Private Truck Fleet
Many Canadian businesses choose to run a private truck fleet to maintain control of their delivery process. However, in many cases managing a private truck fleet can lead to higher costs for a business. That is why it is important to ensure you are effectively tracking and evaluating the total cost of your fleet operations.
There are a number of underlying factors that can impact the operational costs of your truck fleet. These include:
- Tires
- Fuel Costs
- Lease or interest payments
- Truck fleet maintenance fees
- Underutilization of equipment
- Licensing and registration fees
- Staying current with regulatory change
- Corporate risk and rising insurance costs
- Responding to accident and emergency resources
- Labour costs, recruiting and the driver shortage
- Maintaining efficient and effective dispatch operations
Performing a Total Cost of Ownership Analysis of your Private Truck Fleet
Before senior managers can consider if owning a private truck fleet is the best strategic and economic option for their transportation needs, they must perform a Total Cost of Ownership analysis.
A total cost of ownership analysis of a private truck fleet includes both hard costs and soft costs.
Hard Costs Examples:
- equipment maintenance
- driver costs
- fuel
- licensing fees
Soft Costs Examples:
- corporate risk and liability
- management costs
- lost productivity due to breakdowns
- missed customer deliveries
Strategies to Help Reduce Fleet Costs
Once you have evaluated your total cost of ownership for your business’s private fleet, you will be able to identify where you can improve efficiencies to help reduce costs. While businesses can implement these cost reducing strategies within their private fleet, a professional fleet outsourcing company is a proven option that can help improve the performance and efficiency of your fleet even further.
The following are four areas where many businesses have the opportunity to improve on the performance of their fleet to drive down expenses.
- Route optimization
- Effective utilization of equipment
- Proactive vehicle maintenance
- Managing administrative costs
In summary, by understanding your total cost of ownership of your private truck fleet, you can begin to reduce expenses and improve efficiency. Additionally, it will help you determine if you should consider fleet outsourcing as a viable option for managing your fleet.
