The fight against North America’s carbon footprint continues, with thousands of municipal fleet managers leading the charge. Today, dozens of city fleets are looking for new ways to reduce their emissions, with more than 100 major U.S. cities pledging to cut CO2 production in half.
Multiple strategies are available for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, including the purchase of EVs, charging infrastructure, and alternative fuels. But the best and most cost-effective strategy for a net-zero future is leveraging data analytics, including those from telematics.
You can use sustainable fleet management strategies to improve fuel efficiency, meet emission reduction targets, and reduce operational costs. Here’s how you can reduce your city’s carbon footprint with data.
The types of data analytics available for municipal fleets
Many types of data analytics platforms are designed for modern vehicles. With research, education, and elbow grease, you can integrate your existing fleet with metric-tracking telematics.
The most popular fleet data analytics for reducing your carbon footprint are:
- Asset utilization: This KPI can help you better understand how your organization uses its vehicles. You can harness this information to rightsize your fleet and release less carbon into the atmosphere.
- Fuel management: Traditional fuels release millions of pounds of carbon when burned. Fortunately, you can use fleet management tools to track idle times and optimize driving routes, thus reducing your reliance on gasoline and diesel and leading to cost savings.
- Descriptive analytics: You can use descriptive analytics to identify historical patterns and therefore, make informed decisions. For example, you can use predictive analytics to approximate yearly fuel use and compare two years to see your overall carbon savings.
- Predictive analytics: Predictive analytics can help you forecast data and identify issues before they occur. For example, you may want to use predictive analytics to forecast carbon production based on future fleet initiatives.
Keep in mind that you don’t need EVs to use fleet data analytics. No matter the size or composition of your fleet, you can use telematics to make data-driven decisions.
Strategies for using data analytics in fleet carbon reduction programs
Let’s look at five effective strategies for how cities can leverage data analytics to reduce carbon emissions from their fleet.
Anti-idling policies
Idling is one of the sneakiest ways for carbon to enter the atmosphere. The average idling truck releases 21 tons of CO2 daily, totaling over 11 million tons annually.
The best way to stop idling from increasing your carbon footprint is to initiate anti-idling policies. You can use fleet analytics to identify average idle times per vehicle and then create a set limit for drivers to follow.
Fuel-efficient route planning
Meticulous route planning is an easy way to cut back on carbon emissions. This is especially true for rural fleets or agencies in larger, sprawling cities.
Studies show that sufficient planning can cut carbon emissions by 20%, which reduces fuel reliance, saves time, and lowers public budgets. You can also use GPS trackers or location telematics to plan fuel-efficient routes for your fleet, which can help you avoid unexpected delays and reduce service downtime.
Frequent vehicle maintenance
The lower your vehicle’s drivability is, the higher your carbon emissions may be. Poorly maintained vehicles can develop faulty exhausts, which causes them to release more carbon over time.
Adopting fleet maintenance software can help you keep an eye on your vehicles. Not only can you monitor your fleet’s health at a glance, but you can also easily automate appointment reminders so you can schedule DVIs.
Fleet rightsizing
There must be a “Goldilocks Principle” applied to your fleet—not too many vehicles but not too few. This enables you to control carbon emissions more effectively by ensuring balanced utilization and decent idle-time ratios.
Rightsizing your fleet can help you identify vehicles nearing the end of life, especially those that are ineffective or prone to breakdowns and accidents. You can replace any discarded vehicles with new acquisitions, including energy-efficient models requiring modern charging stations.
Effective vehicle purchases
One of the fastest ways to reduce your carbon emissions is to phase out traditional vehicles. Transitioning U.S. government fleets to EVs could reduce CO2 emissions by 19% or more.
Look at maintenance data to see which vehicles should get a replacement. Then, purchase better-suited models, including all-electric, hybrid, or hydrogen vehicles.
How to reduce carbon footprints with Sourcewell
Reducing your city’s carbon footprint starts with practical, actionable data. You can use numeric insights to make better decisions, develop new greening initiatives, and quantify their outcomes for stakeholders.
However, reducing your carbon footprint can be stressful, overwhelming, and challenging to manage alone. Finding the right vendors, suppliers, and educators to support your agency as it pivots to greening initiatives is a good idea.
Sourcewell makes it easy to identify partners that have your best interests in mind. It can help you:
Remember, registering your organization with Sourcewell is always 100% free.
By leveraging data and telematics, a fleet manager can identify areas for sustainability improvement by reducing a fleet's energy consumption and carbon emissions. Sourcewell contracts ensure that government entities can take the first step in supporting these initiatives. See how Sourcewell can help with your cooperative purchasing.
