I attended the Commercial Carrier Journal Fall Symposium in December of last year and sat in on a session led by one of Mesilla Valley Transportation's (MVT) managers. Firstly,
they are a very forward thinking trucking company that has led the way in fuel economy among the larger carriers. I appreciated the opportunity to see what they measured and managed within their company and found that many of these same metrics would work for my little operation.
MVT monitors what they call Key Point Indicators (KPI's) within their fleet. Since I attended that training, I've been tracking KPI's for my fleet. Here's what I record at each fill up (and my most recent numbers) which helps me with the KPI's at the end of each month:
- odometer reading 473,153
- total cost $501.90
- total gallons 127.83
- miles traveled since last fill up 781
- price per gallon $3.93
- miles per gallon 6.11
Additionally, at the beginning of each week I reset my trip odometer and by the end of the week, I tally up total miles and total revenue. I determine my revenue per mile. At the end of the month, I take all the information recorded and fill in the blanks for my KPI's. Below are the KPI's that I track monthly:
- Total miles (loaded and empty- it doesn't matter because it takes fuel to run empty too)
- Total Revenue
- Revenue per mile
- My average fuel cost
- Fuel Mileage
- Fuel cost per mile
- Revenue remaining after fuel costs (Revenue per mile subtract fuel cost per mile)
- National fuel price average (I get that from EIA.GOV)
- Remarks (like home every night, mostly deadheading, whatever puts perspective into the numbers)
MVT tracks a lot more than I mentioned. They track on time performance, driver's hours of service, loaded vs empty miles, time driver has been on the road, etc. I don't need these items in my operation, but you might. I use an app called "NUMBERS" on my iPad to keep up with everything mentioned here. As I continue my business, I'll have these KPI's on my mind and will always be working toward improving them. That keeps me competitive and even miles ahead of owner-operators and small trucking companies that don't manage their fleets effectively.