Fastening the Fuel Belt How Fleet Managers Can Use GPS Technology to Lower Gas Expenses By Noam Cimand With the current global financial crisis, companies large and small are looking for various ways to cut costs. Fuel expenses are a significant portion of any fleet manager’s budget, and the benefits of tracking units are one way to keep the bills low. Monitoring dozens, hundreds or thousands, of trucks or other vehicles presents many challenges, fleet managers have to find methods to best meet the challenge at hand, and GPS-based tracking technology, used for a variety of functions in the industry, is a valuable tool. Tracking units installed inside the body of fleet vehicles, and sometimes integrated with the car computer, enable fleet managers to closely monitor a vehicle’s fuel consumption, driving route efficiency, engine usage, among other options. With these tracking units, equipped with sensors (or CAN bus integrated) that send signals back to the management headquarters at a consistent frequency, managers have the capability to measure various aspects of a vehicle’s performance such as optimal speed, tire air pressure, and others that are influential on the use of gasoline. Monitoring optimal speed for fleet vehicles is one such method of reducing fuel expenses. Research has suggested that large trucks use less gasoline at lower speeds – this can be monitored closely leading to optimal fuel consumption. Next, optimal air pressure in vehicle tiers has an influence on use of gasoline. Low air pressure causes a wider area of the tire to be in contact with the road. As a result, there is a higher resistance and an increased amount of required power needed to overcome that resistance – which of course means that more fuel is needed. Fleet Managers can consistently receive updates on the status of the air pressure in the tire, thereby allowing them to make changes accordingly. A third scenario is determining the most precise and beneficial route used in getting from one location to another. Since tracking units allow managers to track every vehicle in their fleet at any given moment, they can study both driver behavior – whether he is driving safely, off-route, too fast or slow etc., and ensure that the most optimal behavior be insured for future travels. Another situation involves the prevention of fuel theft. Repeated incidents of theft of large gas tanks of trucks that can hold hundreds of gallons of gas have been reported in various places around the world in the past year. Tracking units enable various measurements of fuel levels in a car, which can identify incidents of gasoline theft, and can alarm the fleet manager accordingly. The last half-year especially had seen an increasing interest in devices like fuel sensors in the market. How does this all work? We find ourselves in the current economic situation and fleet managers have the ability to adapt at this time through tracking technologies. Using what is available to them now, and as the technology develops further, tracking technology is clearly presenting continued options and methods to help managers best minimize expenses and increase performance. Noam Cimand is VP Marketing & Sales Manager of Cellocator, the Products Division of Pointer Telocation Ltd., (Nasdaq Capital Market: PNTR, Tel-Aviv Stock Exchange: PNTR) - a leading Automatic Vehicle Location solutions provider for fleet management, car and driver safety, public safety, roadside assistance, vehicle security and asset management.  For more information, please visit http://www.pointer.com/.