Some strategies for fuel reduction include route optimisation, fuel probes, preventative maintenance, telematics systems for driver monitoring and stopping unnecessary idling. If you’ve got a fleet, the chance that you’re looking for strategies to reduce fuel is probably pretty high.
And if you’re not… Data shows that petrol in Kenya from 2020 to 2026 fuel has increased by:
These stats prove just how important it is for fleet owners to find ways to reduce fuel usage as much as possible so that your profits can still remain high. At Karooooo we know how important this is to you. In this blog we’ll break down the top strategies for fuel reduction and how we can help you keep your costs low and your profits high!
There are plenty of strategies you can use to reduce fuel usage in your fleet, but the top 7 ways you can reduce it are:
Let’s break down each of these strategies!
One of the main strategies to reduce fuel wastage is by installing fuel probes in your vehicles. This is how they work:
Fuel probes make sure that as the fleet manager, you’ll always know what’s happening to the fuel in your vehicles.
Something you may not be aware of that’s wasting your fuel is the routes your drivers are using. By installing an advanced GPS system, you’ll be able to optimise the routes your drivers take.
You can save fuel with GPS-assisted routes by:
Optimised routes are an easy way to reduce wasted fuel in your fleet.
Maintenance is often overlooked as a reason for fuel loss. Factors such as:
All of these cause your vehicles to not run optimally and end up wasting fuel. When you implement a telematics system that assists you with predictive maintenance, your fleet will be on top of their game!
Preventative maintenance warns you of all the issues mentioned above before they actually start to affect your fleet. Not only saving you fuel but time as well!
According to industry data, an 8000cc diesel truck idling at 650 rpm burns approximately 0.8 litres per hour. In the context of Kenya’s heavy traffic—where vehicles on routes like Mombasa Road or the Thika Superhighway can spend hours stationary—the costs escalate quickly. If you operate a fleet of 50 trucks, they could easily waste 40 litres of diesel every single day just sitting still. Over a year, this equates to 10,000 litres of wasted fuel, which—at current EPRA pump prices—totals roughly KES 1.8 million to KES 2.1 million in lost revenue.
Your drivers play a major role in ensuring fuel isn’t being wasted. By motivating them through gamification, you can achieve this.
Your drivers need to improve driving habits that waste fuel, such as:
You can motivate and create healthy competition in your team through:
A common oversight that wastes fuel is not using the right-sized vehicle for deliveries. This means not using your heavy-duty truck to deliver one fridge and not overloading your bakkie with all the stock in your warehouse.
Both overloading a small vehicle and underloading a heavy vehicle cause you to waste fuel and damage the lifespan of the vehicle.
A fuel management system is the best way to monitor fuel usage in your entire fleet. By having the data all in one place, it makes your job as a fleet manager so much easier as well! And the best thing? This system can assist with almost all of the above strategies!
By installing a Karooooo fuel management system (MiFleet), you can:
With Karooooo’s value-added MiFleet software, you’ll be able to turn your data into diesel. How? Well, according to studies, fleet management tools like MiFleet can reduce your fuel costs by up to 15%! MiFleet matches fuel spend with telematics data to pick up fuel usage patterns, so you’ll be able to easily detect excessive idling and fuel fraud.
Unfortunately small errors can cost your business thousands. Lost slips or manual typing errors when calculating the entire fleet's fuel spend are common mistakes that businesses face.
MiFleet stores all of your fleet costs and important documents in one place. Your drivers can snap a pic of their fuel slip, fuel gauge and the fuel pump readings on the driver app. You can then instantly approve or flag the transaction.
This makes your life less complicated, because all fuel slips will be automatically uploaded onto your dashboard, meaning no more lost slips and no more manual data entry errors!
Remember that a poorly maintained engine is a thirsty one. MiFleet keeps track of all of your service intervals and maintenance records. How does this help? You’ll never have to guess or try to remember when last your trucks had a service and which truck needs what done.
MiFleet will keep track of the data and let you know in advance which truck is due for what. This means your trucks will always be running at peak efficiency, ultimately lowering fuel usage across your entire fleet!
If you’re ready to stop guessing where your gas is going, contact us today so we can take every byte of data in your fleet and turn it into extra kilometres on the road!
Yes, the type/quality of fuel does really impact your fleet’s consumption. Lower-quality fuel usually has water and dirt in it, which will damage your fuel injectors. This means you’ll end up forcing your engine to burn more fuel to keep up its power.
Hidden vehicle weight can reduce your fuel economy by 1% for every additional 45 kg added to the vehicle. So try not to keep any unnecessary equipment in your vehicles, and encourage your drivers to keep their trucks clean, because even the weight from dirt and debris can play a role.
Beyond driving habits, the most common “silent” operational factor that affects your fuel bill is poor weight distribution. If you unevenly load a trailer, you’ll affect the vehicle’s aerodynamics and increase the resistance on some of your tyres, meaning more fuel will be used.
