How to improve transport and load efficiency

Fleet managers are always looking for ways to improve efficiency of operations. Ensuring your truck cargo processes adhere to the most efficient plans possible helps to cut both costs and time on the road, meaning your fleet is more productive and providing the best possible service.

Ensure your drivers understand the importance of efficiency and give them the routes, loads and tools they need to succeed. Cargo and load transport are a big part of fleet efficiency, so it’s important to ensure these are a focal point in your plans, especially when it comes to deploying effective solutions.

Transport efficiency means using the best vehicle for the job in hand and taking the fastest routes available. Make sure your plans consider vehicle size and capacity to optimise trailers for each job and ensure drivers are equipped with traffic and route data that allows for the most efficient route to be taken.

These factors combine to ensure an appropriately sized vehicle is used for both legs of a journey and that no fuel or time is wasted unnecessarily. Optimal load efficiency means using the right vehicles for your cargo, avoiding over or under loading.

When dealing with truck cargo management there are lots of elements to consider. To avoid empty loads, it’s important to have effective planning in place that ensures the correct vehicles are dispatched.

Maintaining trailers to a high standard and ensuring the weight, distribution and positioning of the cargo is spot on is also very important to ensuring vehicles are stable and safe, as well as fuel efficient on every job. It is vital for avoiding overloading of the trailer and incorrect load securing that can lead to fines.

Many problems and challenges arise for fleet managers when they have inefficient transport and loads. Effective fleet cargo management is put in place to avoid factors such as wasted fuel, vehicle breakdowns, downtime and issues surrounding safety.

All of these can have significant negative financial implications for your business. Putting in place a strong policy surrounding transport and load efficiency can help avoid inefficiencies in these areas.

Your drivers can affect transport and load efficiency in a number of ways and it’s important for fleet managers to be aware of these. It’s also vital for your drivers to know how they impact efficiency so they can adjust their behaviours with your assistance.

Factors such as driving style and load securing practices all have an impact. Driver training is important to boost the skills and knowledge level of your drivers in these areas. A training course helps drivers to understand vehicle technology, fleet road safety, load securing and economical driving.

Transport and load efficiency can be improved in a number of ways with effective planning and the help of tech solutions.

Planning and vehicle dispatching

A big element of improving the efficiency of your fleet’s load management is through planning efficient routes and making sure the right vehicle and driver are chosen for specific jobs. The beauty of our TX-CONNECT tool is that you can control all fleet activities from one place and review previous driver distances, remaining driving and resting times and track the current position.

Using the information provided to you from TX-CONNECT’s evidence-based data, you can improve driver performance to cut costs. As TX-CONNECT operates in real-time, you will know whether your drivers are on time, and if they aren’t you can help them reroute or inform your customer of potential delays proactively. As a result, your fleet will operate far more efficiently and improve customer satisfaction levels.

Cargo security

Loss of cargo and theft is clearly a concern in the forefront of any fleet manager’s mind. It goes without saying that loss or theft of the cargo your fleet is transporting is extremely damaging to both your business’ finances and reputation.

Not only will organising replacements be costly, it will cause lengthy delays, create issues with insurance and could result in loss of customers and a poor company image.

It’s important to safeguard against these eventualities – the OptiLock from WABCO is the perfect solution. This system has both mechanical and electronic locking solutions to suit your requirements. The mechanical solution has anti-drill protection and is easy to install and the electronic system offers several layers of security for your peace of mind.

Maintain your vehicles

The health of your vehicles is vital to the efficient running of your fleet, therefore keeping on top of maintenance is of huge importance.

Employing the help of our TX-DIAGNOSTIX product helps to detect faults and upcoming maintenance needs of your vehicles. Fleet managers, dispatchers or even workshops can be notified of a problem along with tips to speed up the repair process. A tool to provide fleet managers with ongoing remote health checks of the vehicle is invaluable to transport and load efficiency.

Running an efficient fleet operation is extremely important to cut emissions and also for the profitability of your business. Improve your transport and load efficiency with the range of available WABCO products.