ANALYSIS Of all the uses for GPS in school bus fleets,
the ability to know where your buses are at any given time has received the most attention. Yet, an even bigger benefit involves leveraging GPS data to help reduce fuel consumption, costs and ultimately a fleet’s carbon footprint by identify- ing wasteful practices such as excessive idling. Case in point: a 178-vehicle private school
Going Green with GPS Fleet Tracking
By Renaat Ver Eecke
bus company in New Hampshire that slashed 10 percent off its fuel usage and nearly $50,000 off its diesel bill in one year using a GPS-based fleet tracking system. Tat company, Provider Enter- prises, recently earned an InfoWorld ‘Green 15’ Award for that achievement. Fleet tracking systems combine in-bus GPS
tracking units, back-office analytical software and personal communication/navigation devic- es that connect drivers directly to the dispatch center. Like cardiac monitors that record every human heartbeat, each GPS unit captures the bus’ physical location every few seconds and transmits the data to the back-office software over the cellular network. Te data is then corre- lated with other information to generate detailed reports about vehicle and driver behavior that can be used to optimize operations — including reducing fuel, labor and vehicle operating costs. Much of the information doubles as a road
map for bringing fleets into compliance with district-driven green initiatives as well as federal programs such as Clean School Bus USA. Te data can be used, for example, to:
•Reduce idling and related air pollution — With a typical idling school bus engine burning half a gallon of fuel per hour and emitting extra CO2 as well, reducing idling is arguably the most important step that can be taken to green a school bus fleet. According to the EPA’s Na- tional Idle-Reduction Campaign calculator, for example, a 50-bus fleet that reduces idling by just 30 minutes a day saves 2,250 gallons of fuel and $9,000 annually. Best-of-breed fleet track- ing systems can support the effort by flagging excessive idling in reports and/or real-time alerts, based on a lack of movement when the vehicle ignition is on or by connection to sen- sors that measure engine revolutions based on oil pressure. Tis information can be used to modify or enforce anti-idling policies.
•Curb fuel-wasting speeding — Since driving faster than 60 mph burns proportionally more fuel than at lower speeds, ensuring that drivers observe speed limits can be another important element of a green program. Advanced fleet
70 School Transportation News Magazine July 2010
tracking systems can help by calculating driving speed based on a vehicle’s arrival time at different GPS points, and then identifying policy violations by individual drivers in reports and/or real-time alerts. In addition to reducing fuel consumption, controlling speeding saves money (the U.S. De- partment of Energy calculates that each 5 mph increment over 60 mph costs an additional 24 cents per gallon of gas) and improves safety.
•Maximize routing efficiency — For districts or bus companies with frequent driver changes or substitutes, fleet tracking systems can help prevent extra driving and associated fuel usage by pushing route information to the system’s in-vehicle communication device. Dispatchers can send routing directions by text message, or destination information to the system’s per- sonal navigation device for automatic route calculation, with a click.
• Stop unauthorized personal vehicle use — To further reduce fuel consumption, districts or bus companies with vans or buses kept at driv- ers’ homes can use fleet tracking systems to set up virtual perimeters called geofences around each driver’s house. Te system can then de- tect personal vehicle use by tracking when the vehicle arrives and leaves the area, and com- paring that information to authorized drive times. For drivers, simply knowing they are be- ing monitored is a strong deterrent to vehicle misuse and related fuel usage.
•Optimize maintenance — Less directly but still significant, another green benefit of fleet tracking systems involves the ability to accurately track bus mileage and use that in- formation to produce maintenance schedules based on desired service intervals. Tis helps prevent late servicing that can lead to break- downs (with the need to dispatch a rescue bus that will burn extra fuel) as well as minimize premature servicing that wastes oil, filters and other resources.
All of these benefits are made possible by com-
bining GPS technology with robust fleet tracking software that provides in-depth insight into fleet usage patterns. In most cases, the data available from these systems is not available from any other source, making GPS-based fleet tracking a corner- stone in the effort to green your fleet. n
Renaat ver Eecke is vice president and general manager of Navman Wireless North America, a provider of GPS-based fleet management prod- ucts and services.
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