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Idealease revolutionizes fleet operations with ELEVATE®, our proprietary Driver Performance System that improves driver safety and saves fleets millions of dollars in annual operating costs.

Sign up for the ELEVATE® Question/Tip of the Week and receive short, actionable, and easy-to-use information to help your drivers operate their vehicles more safely while reducing fuel consumption, idle time, wear and tear on equipment, maintenance costs, vehicle downtime, and more.

If you have a question or a topic you would like covered in a future ELEVATE Question/Tip of the Week, email ELEVATE@Idealease.com.

Find a complete list of ELEVATE topics below.

Pre-delivery Idle Management

Q:

Much of our idle accumulation happens around deliveries.  How can we minimize that?

A:

Idle reduction is about changing driver habits.  When a driver pulls in to a delivery location, that is their opportunity to lower idle.  These are the habits to focus on changing.

  • When a driver parks, does he/she shut off the vehicle immediately?  Many drivers park, apply parking brakes, grab their order info to review and other activities, then finally turn the vehicle off prior to getting out of the vehicle.  This can add up to anywhere from 30 seconds to a couple of minutes of idle.
  • When they pull in and all delivery bays are full, do they turn off the vehicle to wait or keep it running until a bay becomes available?  Often times a driver sees another driver walking to his or her cab and leaves the vehicle running, assuming they'll be waiting only a few more seconds; usually that driver gets in the cab and completes multiple other tasks before finally vacating the bay.  Those assumptions can cost another 2-3 minutes of idle.

Simply put, when your driver arrives at their destination, shut off the vehicle.  Even if they feel it’s going to be a couple minutes, this can make significant improvements over multiple deliveries per day and many deliveries over the course of a month.

Next week, we’ll provide tips on how to reduce idle time once the delivery is completed.