Better Fleet: What effective fleet-cost intelligence actually looks like

June 23, 2026

Start by focusing on behaviours, not vehicles

Many fleets still use telematics primarily to locate vehicles or investigate incidents such as speeding.

Leading fleets increasingly focus on the behaviours driving cost.

Currys provides a good example. Using Lightfoot's real-time driver coaching technology across more than 670 vans, the retailer reduced annual fuel costs by £416,000, equivalent to around £620 per vehicle.

The programme also delivered:

10.8% lower fuel consumption
11% lower CO₂ emissions
5% reduction in idling
98% reduction in risky driving behaviours

As Chris Georgiou, Head of Compliance for Supply Chain and Service Operations at Currys, explains:

"It's a world apart from using telematics retrospectively. This has helped our drivers improve their driving standards, enabling them to become smoother and safer at pace."

Measure productivity, not just mileage

One of the most underused features within telematics is understanding how vehicles spend their time.

Industry guidance increasingly encourages fleets to analyse drive time versus time on site, vehicle utilisation and route efficiency rather than focusing solely on mileage.

Quartix reports that many fleets achieve savings through better route planning, reduced crossover between vehicles and improved job allocation. One customer, W J Road Markings, reported £160,000 in savings alongside a 12% improvement in MPG after using telematics data to improve operational performance.

Other commonly overlooked opportunities include:

identifying underutilised vehicles
reducing unnecessary idling
assigning jobs to the nearest available vehicle
finding backhaul opportunities that turn empty miles into revenue

As Geotab notes in its fleet cost reduction guidance, many businesses don't need more vehicles. They need more efficient utilisation of the vehicles they already have.

Use telematics to improve safety through driver management

The most expensive fleet events are often collisions, claims and vehicle downtime.

This is why many operators are increasingly combining telematics, driver coaching and video technology.

Tarmac's integrated Geotab and Motormax solution demonstrates the potential. By combining video telematics with fleet data, the company achieved:

30% reduction in collisions
30% reduction in collision repair costs
25% improvement in van fuel economy
speeding incidents halved

The wider industry is reaching similar conclusions. Driver behaviour is considered the root cause of 94% of road collisions, according to driver risk management specialists.

As Steve Thomas, Managing Director of telematics provider Ctrack UK, explains:

"Only by making the message resonate with the driver will they start to consider the consequences of their own actions."

The strongest fleets increasingly use telematics to identify risk patterns before they become claims, repair bills or vehicle-off-road time.

Move from reporting problems to predicting them

Historically, telematics has been used to explain what happened yesterday.

Increasingly, fleets are using it to understand what happens next.

Geotab identifies predictive maintenance, route optimisation and fuel-efficiency analysis as some of the most effective ways to reduce operational costs before they occur.

Quartix highlights a similar opportunity. Rather than simply tracking vehicles, fleets are using telematics to identify underutilised assets, forecast maintenance requirements and spot hidden inefficiencies before they become expensive problems.

The principle is simple.

The earlier a fleet identifies a cost risk, the cheaper it usually is to solve.

In the next article, we break this down into a practical playbook you can apply to your own fleet.

More guidance in this series:

Better Fleet: why telematics data still isn't informing the bottom line

Better Fleet: a practical playbook for turning telematics data into fleet savings

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