5 Ways to Utilize ELD Data

Using an ELD for fleet management not only keeps you compliant, it also contains data about your fleet to help you track the date, time, location, engine hours, vehicle miles, as well as driver identification information and more. 

If you want to learn more about how to get the most use out of your ELD data to reduce risk and protect your fleet, read on.

1. Boost Operations

Fleet data captured by your ELD can improve your operational efficiency by providing location start time, end time, and time on-site for each vehicle in your fleet. This can be used to strategize a baseline metric to keep your fleet running at its maximum efficiency.  

Fleet managers can set up geofences that trigger a warning when geographic locations are crossed. They can also use this data to develop productivity guidelines for each location to monitor late arrivals, early departures, and long or unauthorized stops during working hours.

ELD operational data can also provide information to help fleet managers shore up data on: 

• Vehicles: Facilitate efficient routes and compare metrics like planned vs. actual arrival times, stop duration, and more. 
• Customer Service: GPS tracking alerts customers of arrival times for cargo. 
• Drivers: Real-time visibility into driver status allows for more efficient scheduling and fairness for your drivers.  

2. Improve Safety

Most ELDs track driver performance metrics such as quick acceleration, hard braking, and speeding that impact the safety of your drivers, your vehicles, and other drivers on the road.  

Fleet managers can create and compare safety scores and coach drivers accordingly to: 

• Avoid distracted driving: An open platform fleet management system with an integrated camera system can monitor instances of distracted driving and conduct periodic audits to make sure guidelines are being followed. When paired with telematics, fleet managers can alert drivers of distracted driving in real time. 
• Maintain safe habits: Seat-belt use, avoiding hard-braking, and maintaining the speed set by company policy can all be monitored to help drivers stay safe and reduce the risk of an accident. 
• Reduce fraudulent liability claims: Reconstructing accidents with telematics allows you to gather strong evidence about what happened before, during, and after a collision. 

3. Save Resources 

An idling vehicle wastes one gallon of fuel per hour. Apply that to even a medium-sized fleet, and you’ve got some real issues. 

Idle time is a metric that has a massive impact on your fuel costs, so tracking and correcting it is a must. 

Fleet managers can utilize data paired with an ELD to identify why idling is occurring and coach drivers who are idling too often and for too long. 

ELDs can be used to create notifications via email or text when idle guidelines are not followed so that corrections can be made in real time. 

Bonus: Here’s more fleet data that can be paired with an ELD to help you cut idling and manage the wasting of fuel resources:  

• Driver behavior data

• Vehicle performance data

• GPS tracking data

4. Reduce Downtime

ELDs can harness the data from telematics systems to alert fleet managers to schedule preventive maintenance that save money and downtime.  

Combining an ELD with engine data like fault codes and analytics saves drivers from having to call in about warning lights on individual vehicles. 

An ELD can alert fleet managers to engine lights and battery voltage levels and use analytics to identify patterns that allow them to schedule work orders far in advance of a roadside breakdown that costs a fortune in repairs.

5. Automate Reports

ELD systems can eliminate manual reporting by automating tasks that take up valuable time that your employees could be using to serve your clients, like:  

• Mileage Reports: Create reports from data gathered through GPS tracking.
• Fuel Reports: Import fuel card data for accurate fuel reports.

Automated reporting increases accuracy and all but eliminates instances of overpay, missing data, and human error.

More than Compliance

ELD technology and telematics can provide fleet managers with more than compliance; ELDs help facilitate your KPIs and can go a long way toward increasing the ROI on your fleet.  

Nexxo Fleet provides the next level in ELD solutions for your fleet. Request a demo to see how we’re different.