I’ve been driving professionally now for 20 years, back then the name of the game was to get the job done as fast as possible without any thought of saving fuel or taking care of the vehicle. With the advent of fuel monitoring systems (namely Isotrak) it seems that drivers(old and new) of today not only have to be professional but also have to be fuel efficient. With this comes increased pressure on the driver simply because the price of fuel and parts makes up a HUGE part of an operators outlay, therefore the operators need to keep costs to a minimum.
What does everyone think of such systems, good or bad ? ? ? And are you one of the drivers who cares about treating the vehicle as if it were yours or do you still drive like you have always done and face the wrath of the Boss when your fuel figures are rubbish?
We’ve got isotrak and fleetboard watching over us, from an employers point of view they are a great idea as they do point out the drivers who can’t/won’t modify their driving style. I started at the firm I’m at now a year ago and had never had these systems watching over me before and I found it hard at 1st but now I don’t even think about them. We get a £50 p/w bonus if your fleetboard score is upto scratch, so it pays to drive economically
On a driving assessment I was told that letting the wagon rollover the green band whilst using the exhaust brake wastes fuel and that fleet board or whatever the system was called would mark me down for it.
heaven forbid i downshift to get in the blue band! 
fleet board knows when the exhauster is on, dunno how but you dont get an overrev, recently drove a new DAF with all this on and TBH what a toy the DAF was, scoring me on my driving as it happened, i was always trying to get 5 ticks not as easy as planned like, and one harsh brake or misjudged would score you down 10% and it was a bugger to get back up, but TBH i found it passed time away and broke the journey up a bit, heaven knows what else the m
anufacturer have in store for us
I like the idea of saving fuel & cutting down on CO2 etc, what I don’t like is being spied on & being told a load of bs by someone who can’t even drive a car properly. I drive every vehicle like it’s my own because I’m going to want to drive it again tomorrow.
Ps-‘fleetboard’ sounds like a load of balls to me…
Why doesn’t everyone stay at home, drive a ‘job simulation’ and have done with it? No fuel wastage, stay in the green, no harsh braking, no accidents and the company gets/has a great public image! FFS!!!
We’re nearly obsolete anyway!
Does this technology take into account factors that the driver has no control over, like, head and side winds, height of trailer, terrain, gross weight of vehicle. As far as I am aware these can affect performance of both fuel usage and also braking.
Cake and eat it?
They want professional driver fuel consumption which translates to maintaining normal but restrained progress, that hasn’t changed in all the years lorries have been used.
Then they specify, buy, rent, lease lorries that require only steering wheel input for the bloke behind the wheel, yet wonder why these wonderful boxes of electronic tricks can’t match the fuel consumptions of the previous generations of vehicles that required a driver to control them in all ways.
Time and again drivers who take care/pride can beat hands down the automatics fuel figures by driving the thing manually, quite why this isn’t common knowledge among transport managers…ahh problem there few transport managers left.
Its job creation thats all, some pen pusher has a cushty little job sitting on his arse monitoring all this garbage,and h’e s going to make it alst as long as possible, he won’t have the foggiest bloody idea what a hilly and junctioned cross country route can do to a loaded lorry’s fuel consumption, why would he know, some drivers don’t have a clue so why should he.
Fortunately i’ve never had a job paying fuel bonus, and don’t want one, one job paid a quarterly bonus for keeping the Vemis joke out of the pre programmed sectors, i never received that bonus yet i had the best fuel figures in the depot, work that one out.
When I drove for the Red Arrows, those based at Oxford were always worse off than the Swindon wagons in terms of fuel bonus as they nearly always drove up to our pit empty and went back empty most of the way. We’d get the Oxford city work and the Oiks would get the rest-we’d get backloads which knocked us back further in terms of mpg. Being on locals meant we got little or no production bonus either despite us doing more and having the hassle of Oxford city driving. Having a useless auto boxed MAN added to the mix too.
Where I am now, we have trackers on all but the three oldest wagons. It can do harsh braking etc but isn’t monitored unless there’s a problem. They tend to use it to let customers know where we are so’s not to bother us.
Over here we use a system called Qualcom. Tell the office just about everything from fuel consumption to how long you have your cruise control on and sending messages and pick up details. One company have a compition every year and the prize for the driver with the best fuel consumption is a brand new truck with their name and that on the side.
■■■■ all that ■■■■. I chase ferries for a living, 6-8 a week and the last thing on my mind is fuel consumption, brake pads, tyres etc. I want my dinner and nothing going to stop me get it, an that’s it, end off.
They use isotrak where I am. The transport supervisors are keen to point out harsh accelerations etc etc and pull you up on it, all in the name of wasting fuel. They weren’t quite so keen on fuel wastage when I pointed out they sent me with another driver from Stoke to Shepshed to pick up a rental tractor unit, in an artic which was going from Stoke to Hull.
Its just another spy in the cab I tell you!
Turbo:
They use isotrak where I am. The transport supervisors are keen to point out harsh accelerations etc etc and pull you up on it, all in the name of wasting fuel. They weren’t quite so keen on fuel wastage when I pointed out they sent me with another driver from Stoke to Shepshed to pick up a rental tractor unit, in an artic which was going from Stoke to Hull.
Its just another spy in the cab I tell you!
The point is that their fuel wasting does not register anywhere, yours does.
Hiya …like its ok for the router to send me to Tottenham from Chester with 23 tones keep your foot
off the peddle, plus gives me 5000 stanley knife blades for St Neots. St Neots town centre 3 tons weight limit
with an artic with a box 1/3 the size of a loaf of bread…oh well thats ok it was his idea…nutter,s the lot of them
John
Yep been there John, try 4 x pallets of garden chairs weighing less than 1/2 a ton on a full 44 tonner, Northampton area to Durham area, wait for 4 hours to unload them at the typical RDC hole, empty back.
You gotta love these logistics operators with their legions of managers and more computing and monitoring equipment than NASA, if they spent some money on real transport managers instead of idiots and binned the toys, then stopped peeing the clients money up the wall as if there’s a bottomless pit of it, then things might improve.
Mind you, i have no sympathy with the clients of these fools either, whilst they fail to keep an eye on whats really happening, they deserve to pay through the nose for a third rate service.
Juddian:
You gotta love these logistics operators with their legions of managers and more computing and monitoring equipment than NASA, if they spent some money on real transport managers instead of idiots and binned the toys, then stopped peeing the clients money up the wall as if there’s a bottomless pit of it, then things might improve.Mind you, i have no sympathy with the clients of these fools either, whilst they fail to keep an eye on whats really happening, they deserve to pay through the nose for a third rate service.
+1:lol:
taffytrucker:
prize for the driver with the best fuel consumption is a brand new truck with their name and that on the side.
:lol: just like Sainsbury huh… I don’t give zb about all that name on the door stuff, just give me the money it’s cost for all that crap & the fuel I’ve saved them:mrgreen:
waddy640:
Does this technology take into account factors that the driver has no control over…
Bluetree doesn’t. Don’t see the point in it when you’re regularly sent half way up a (*take your pick) Lake District mountain in a gas mini-bulker. The Highland and Welsh drivers will be the same.
“Bull in a China Shop” pings up.
Was told at our dcpc course that the company are looking at doing away with iso-trac and instead you will be given a tablet which will have all the information on it you require,he said its a out of date system,my own gut feeling is its a very costly system.
We will see.