A lease is up for renewal
Three tractor units come off lease next quarter. The finance company wants to know whether you are renewing. The planners say the fleet is flat out. The accounts say margins are thin. You suspect some trucks are busy and some are not, but you cannot prove it, and the trailer count feels high for the work you do.
At the same time, a prospective customer wants a dedicated vehicle for a new contract, and the question of whether you can cover it from the existing fleet or need another truck comes down to someone's impression of how busy things were last month. The telematics system has a report that shows mileage by vehicle. It does not answer the question.
Why nobody knows
Utilisation looks like something the telematics system should tell you. It tells you where trucks went. It does not know whether that was paid work, an empty run, a trip to the workshop or a truck parked because there was no driver.
- Telematics records movement, not whether the movement earned money.
- The plan records intended work, not what happened.
- Trailers are rarely tracked as closely as tractor units.
- Days a truck stands idle for want of a driver look the same as days off the road for repair.
- Reports come from each system separately, and nobody joins them.
What not knowing costs
Too many trucks means paying for vehicles that do not earn. Too few means turning work away or paying subcontractors. The same applies to trailers. Decisions about renewals, new contracts and driver recruitment are all made without evidence, and the bigger the decision, the bigger the guess.
There is a subtler cost. A truck standing because nobody is available to drive it looks, in most reports, exactly like a truck standing because there is no work. Buy another truck in that situation and you have two standing. Knowing which problem you have is the whole point.
The utilisation reporting we build
- We read vehicle movement from telematics, planned and completed loads from your transport system, and workshop time from your maintenance records.
- Each vehicle's day is classified: loaded, empty running to or from a load, workshop, standing with a driver available, or standing without a driver.
- Trailers are tracked the same way where they have trackers, and from coupling events and plans where they do not.
- Reports show working days, loaded and empty miles, idle time and reasons by vehicle, type and depot.
- Trends over months show whether the fleet is getting busier or quieter, and which types are short.
- You can model a change, such as dropping two units, by seeing how the work they did could have been covered by others.
| Measure | Where it comes from | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Working days | Plan and telematics | Shows vehicles that earn |
| Loaded vs empty miles | Telematics and loads | Shows wasted running |
| Standing without driver | Plan and rota | Driver shortage, not truck shortage |
| Workshop days | Maintenance records | Reliability by vehicle |
| Trailer idle time | Trackers and coupling events | Trailer pool size |
What you can decide afterwards
Renewal decisions start from each vehicle's working record. You can tell a truck shortage from a driver shortage, which are fixed in different ways. Trailer counts can be set by how many are really in use. And the conversation with the finance company or a new customer is backed by figures you trust, which makes it easier to make the right call.
Checklist
- Fleet decisions are made on feel.
- You cannot say how many days each truck worked last month.
- Empty miles are not measured.
- Trucks stand for lack of drivers and nobody records it.
- You are not sure how many trailers you need.