GPS tracking tools are an integral part of the way you manage your fleet. Though you may already be using the software to track your fleets productivity and efficiency, the question remains: are you fully utilizing all the features your tracking software has to offer?

Most fleet tracking software comes with a number of features that can vastly improve the way you manage your fleet – but only if you know how to use them.

Safety Features

Real time alerts and other GPS tracking safety features can protect your drivers, your vehicles, and your company from damages due to theft, unsafe driving, or accidents.

According to Fleetmatics.com, “By improving the safety of drivers and vehicles, businesses can significantly reduce payouts for accidents and violations. Many business owners do not realize that the true cost of an accident is 2 to 10 times more than the direct cost of the accident,”

• Real time alerts keep your drivers aware of the status of their trucks when they aren’t around. These alerts can inform your drivers if their vehicle’s security is compromised – it it’s moved without ignition or if the battery has been removed from the vehicle.
• Speeding and hard braking alerts can inform fleet managers that an employee is engaging in dangerous or aggressive driving. Managers can immediately respond to the situation and help prevent the kind of accidents that result from this behavior, either through updated training or termination of a repeatedly unsafe driver.

Routing Features

Fleet tracking systems can help your employees find the best routes across town or across the country. Improving driving routes can, in turn, increase the efficiency and productivity of your fleet while reducing costs and idle times.

• Historical route information: Knowing what routes your employees have used in the past can help you determine the most efficient way to get from point A to point B.
• Custom geographics: Drivers easily navigate their planned routes by custom defining the landmarks used by the routing program. Managers can ensure that drivers are staying on task by setting boundary notifications for a geographic area.
• Sharing tracks: Drivers can share advice and insights about routes, detours, short cuts, and rest stops with the rest of the fleet. This pool of knowledge helps to establish best practices for common routes used by your fleet.

Analysis Features

In order to manage your fleet, you need to know what it’s doing, where it’s going, and whether it’s sticking to established routes and practices. Analytics features can help you compare down time versus work time, for example, giving greater insight into the ways you can improve overall business productivity.

• With analytics tools you can assess your drivers’ performance over time, both individually and as a group.
• Your analytics reports can assess whether routes are efficient and calculate how much driver time is spent idle – whether for sleeping, eating, or making a delivery.
• Analytics reports preclude the need for drivers to manually send their hours – accurate reports can be pulled from the analytics on a daily, monthly, or yearly basis.

GPS tracking is one of the most important tools you use each day. The routing, analytics, and safety features that tracking provides can benefit both your business and your drivers.

Megan Webb-Morgan is a web content writer for Resource Nation. She writes about small business, focusing on topics such as GPS tracking software. Follow Resource Nation on Twitter and join their conversations on Google+!