Trucking Co. Captures Added $277,000 per Month with GPS Tracking from Fleetmatics

JD Field Services Inc. switched to Fleetmatics GPS tracking because it was dissatisfied with its current vendor. The new service has provided multiple benefits including helping track down stolen property, capturing an additional $277,000 in revenue a month from reduced fuel costs and facilitating a 40% reduction in speeding incidents.

In June 2013, Kason Goodrich received a call at home around 3 a.m. from a local police department informing him that someone had just stolen one of his company’s trucks. Goodrich serves as controller for trucking company JD Field Services Inc. based in Vernal, Utah. Goodrich already knew there was a theft problem in the company’s yard but wasn’t able to identify the thief. This time, however, he was able to direct the police officer to the vehicle’s exact location simply by looking at an application on his smartphone. The perpetrators led police on a high-speed chase through neighborhood streets, but police eventually caught up to them thanks to Goodrich’s real-time navigating.

As luck would have it, Goodrich installed a GPS fleet-tracking device from Fleetmatics in the truck earlier that day. He was able to monitor the truck’s whereabouts by looking at the Fleetmatics mobile app. Police eventually caught the thieves and recovered the truck along with some items that were stolen from JD Field Services’ yard. The added protection against theft and other potential legal liabilities has been a pleasant surprise for the company. But Fleetmatics has a much greater impact on JD Field Services’ bottom line.

Goodrich estimates the company will capture an additional $277,000 of revenue a month by reducing fuel demands. The company will also end up with greater customer satisfaction, as the solution can ultimately help its clients save money as well. Just two months after deploying Fleetmatics, the company has realized significant savings from the solution and expects to gain more after it is fully deployed.

A Reliable, Cost-Effective Solution

Goodrich plans to extend Fleetmatics to all of the company’s 144 trucks. He decided to switch from a competitor of Fleetmatics, because he wanted a more robust tracking solution to prepare for the federal Electronic On-Board Recorders (EOBR) mandate that will take effect in 2015. The mandate will require commercial trucking companies to electronically record drivers’ hours. Goodrich also wanted a more reliable system to track vehicle speed, mileage and fuel usage.

His former fleet tracking service was not providing the company with the information it needed to accurately capture this critical data, Goodrich says. “They just gave you the speed but no indication whether the driver was actually speeding or exceeding limits,” Goodrich explains. The old service was costly, too, and many of the units weren’t functioning properly, he says.

Goodrich explored other GPS fleet-tracking solutions, but he was impressed with Fleetmatics’ state-of-the art tracking features, including its speeding notifications and idling alerts. It was also one of the most cost-effective solutions available. The Fleetmatics mobile app was another selling point. In addition to helping Goodrich track a crook, the app helps him communicate with drivers more efficiently.

“When I’m not in the field, I can pull up Fleetmatics on my phone or iPad and see where a driver is, from anywhere—in real time.” He says, “I don’t have to be sitting at my desk.” Ticket to Fuel Savings In the first couple months since the company began deploying Fleetmatics, drivers have already been responsive. “I visited a location where most of the idling time occurs, and a couple of the drivers who I spoke with were actually going around the site and turning people’s trucks off, and they were spreading the word,” Goodrich says.

That’s a big deal on oil field sites where trucks often idle for 12 to 14 hours a day. JD Field Services typically dispatches 20 trucks to an oil field location. The company could save approximately 260 hours per day in idling time, or 2,200 gallons a day in fuel, by eliminating idling time on the site, according to Goodrich. By effectively tracking and cutting idling time, JD Field Services is prepared to save more than $9,000 a day in fuel costs, Goodrich says. Drivers also are more aware of their speed.

Overall, speeding incidents have declined by approximately 40 percent, Goodrich says. JD Field Services drivers averaged two speeding tickets per month. Since the company deployed Fleetmatics, no drivers have been cited for speeding. In fact, the solution helped the company successfully fight a speeding ticket. A driver received a ticket in Montana for driving 85 mph in a 65-mph zone.

Goodrich says the driver called him immediately after the officer left to tell Goodrich he wasn’t speeding. “I pulled the tracking data from Fleetmatics and saw he was going 54 mph in that exact location,” Goodrich says. Goodrich sent the information to the judge assigned to the case. The next day the judge notified Goodrich that he was dismissing the ticket. “The judge said, ‘This is awesome. Not only was your driver going 54 mph at the time, but every driver behind him was wondering why this guy won’t drive faster,’” Goodrich recalls.

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