5 Ways to Reduce Transportation Costs Efficiently in 2020

The turbulent economy has lately made it difficult for transportation businesses and field service to flourish. There are many reasons why your transportation logistics costs are skyrocketing. For example, a lack of proper planning and transparency or bad decision-making can lead to increased overall costs, failed delivery or appointment targets, unhappy customers, and ultimately a business loss. Five ways to reduce transportation costs are as follows:

Reasons for high transportation costs

• Lack of planning: Proper planning plays a vital role in reducing expenses and for a peaceful journey. There should be a more conventional plan which should include knowledge of well-optimized routes, vehicle capacity, etc.
• Lack of transparency: Transparent and accurate data helps in effectively managing transportation costs and outcomes. By gaining increased clarity into fuel and freight expense, shippers can develop a transformative organization strategy.
• Bad decision making: It is on the driver to make all the decisions related to vehicles, roads, etc., which leads to an increase or decrease in costs.

Knowing the well-optimized routes

A lousy route can make your entire trip more hectic, time-consuming, and stressful. The poor path will cause your driver to spend more time on roads, being stuck in the traffic, and traveling long distances, which will skyrocket fuel usage and expenses. Thus, make sure that you provide a 100% accurate route to your drivers, which could be done using an advanced technology solution, e.g., route planner.

Confirm regular vehicle maintenance.

One should have a proper preventive maintenance program in place because regular vehicle governance/inspections and maintenance will prevent breakdowns and keep your vehicles in a better condition which will help your vehicle achieve the best mileage and will thus save your money. You must keep changing the air filters, replace spark plugs, and change the oil and oil filters within regular intervals. The reporting nature of a route planner will also be helpful here.

Decrease the percentage of failed deliveries

Most failed deliveries happen because of errors in the warehouse, e.g., wrong freight label, inappropriate content of the shipment, or mins sorting before handover to the shipper. One of the best ways to improve first-time delivery success is allowing your customers to choose their preferred delivery windows. This will ensure that someone will indeed be available at the location when the driver shows up.

Monitor your drivers

Following proper routes is an essential step, but it will not be practical or will not help you reduce the cost until and unless the driver follows it. All such actions, which include frequent brakes, harsh acceleration, etc… lead to increased fuel expenses. Therefore, you should track your drivers and vehicles and see what the drivers do on the road by using a GPS tracker.