Tracking Vehicle Idling Can Help you Save a Lot

No kidding at all! Idling causes more harm to your pocket and the environment than it causes to the vehicle itself. It is one of the biggest reasons that lead to the bad fuel economy of vehicles. GPS Tracking can help you keep a check on your driver’s habit of unnecessarily leaving the vehicle idle. 

Why it is important to reduce idling

1. Saves Fuel

• The obvious one, right! We know its significance, yet most of us neglect it, especially the drivers who are on driving duty the whole day. According to a study, turning off the car in traffic can save up to 8.7% of fuel which is more efficient than idling and waiting for the signal to turn green. This percentage turns out to be in gallons when we consider heavy vehicles like trucks. 

2. Healthy for environment

• Less idling means less fuel waste, hence reduced carbon footprints. If you turn off the engine for 10 min in traffic you prevent 450 grams of CO2 from being released into the air. Now imagine if millions of drivers adopt this practice, how much stress we can take off the environment.  

3. Improves Fleet Efficiency

• Less idling will improve the fuel economy and save big bucks for fleet owners. It will improve the overall efficiency of the fleet. If the fuel efficiency of the fleet of a thousand vehicles improves by 1%, it will easily save more than a million dollars in a year. 

Three Practices to Reduce Vehicle Idling 

1. Turn off the engine when waiting for more than 15 sec

• It is better to turn off the engine when you are waiting for the signal to turn green. Idling for more than 10 seconds uses more fuel and emits more CO2 than stopping and restarting your engine does. 

2. Idling the engine before driving off is not warming-up

• Gone are the days when cars needed to be warmed up in winter to reach the optimum temperature. Today, driving the vehicle helps the engine reach its ideal operating temperature faster than idling it.

3. GPS Tracking System for commercial vehicles

• Drivers tend to leave the ignition on while they step out of the vehicle for a short while. This careless attitude hampers the overall fuel economy of the fleet. Having a GPS tracking system in place alerts you every time the vehicle exceeds the set limit of idling time. You get a consolidated report of the vehicle's performance and driving behaviour. It helps you spot the exact problem area and fix that. 

No wonder technology has made this bumpy ride much smoother now. A GPS Tracking system or Fleet Management Software ensures that ill practices such as idling do not harm the overall fleet efficiency. You not only save on money but also reduce your carbon footprints.