The article was originally published on Ascendix Tech.

Many companies have started investing large funds into fleet management software as it helps automate most daily tasks, reduce operational costs, and increase customer satisfaction.

According to the Fortune Business Insights report, the fleet management software market has reached the level of $16.9 bln in 2020 and is projected to exceed $19.6 bln by the end of 2021

For this reason, we decided to cover the topic of fleet management software development covering such topics as:

• Fleet management software definition
• Best fleet management software solutions
• Must-have logistics management software functionality
• Fleet management software costs
• Key steps to build your own fleet management system.

Let's get down to business.

What Is Fleet Management Software

In simple terms, fleet management software (FMS) is a cloud-based software solution that enables organizations to track and administrate all vehicles, drivers, and technicians in one place.

Let's take a look at the key things you can automate and monitor in real-time:

• Current vehicle location and route direction with GPS tracking

• Current speed, temperature, fuel level and usage, door opening

• Driver hours of service (HOC) and power take-off

• Many others.

What are the top fleet management solutions?

Many companies see vivid benefits in using out-of-the-box fleet management systems that provide ready-made functionality within relatively easy and fast setup.

Here is the list of the most popular and famous fleet management software solutions in the market:

• Fleetio

• USFleetTracking

• Rhino Fleet Tracking

• Onfleet.

Must-Have Fleet Management Software Features

#1 Vehicle GPS tracking

Real-time truck GPS tracking is one of the key features that helps e-commerce businesses and other companies optimize their logistics processes.

Entrepreneurs want to monitor and manage their trucks along with tracking such parameters as current vehicle location, speed, fuel usage, trip duration time, and many others.

All these demands become possible by implementing GPS tracking functionality which provides an all-inclusive next-level real-time overview tools that synchronize managers and drivers.

#2 Driver behavior monitoring

Simply put, drivers make one of the most crucial yet low-end routine work that allow businesses to gain profit and meet customers' demands.

This fact makes it reasonable to build driver behavior monitoring functionality which helps both a company to monitor and manage drivers real-time and drivers to get relevant recommendations and bonuses for successful plan overachievement.

So, this functionality provides the following benefits:

• Minimize the fleet collisions ratio so that companies can greatly reduce operational costs

• Get real-time metrics and generate all-inclusive reports based on deep driver behavior analysis

• Implement scoreboards for drivers to stimulate them work safely and timely by providing quarter bonuses.

#3 Fuel management

One of the key spending patterns for delivery companies is fuel consumption as commercial drivers make over 1,000,000 miles per year.

For this reason, fuel consumption management functionality is an essential feature for all business nowadays.

First, it helps companies to monitor all fleet trucks’ fuel levels, the average frequency of refuelling and draining, and control the fuel costs.

Second, businesses get advanced real-time insights into possible leaks and theft cases. It allows them to prevent negative risks that influence profit generation results and final customer satisfaction.

Third, fleet fuel management software enables organizations to set alarms that display warnings each time draining takes place.

#4 Trip logging and mileage calculation functionality

All fleet and logistics companies make use of advanced logistics algorithms to make their processes as time- and cost-effective as possible.

This way, they can greatly reduce operational costs, boost profit, and meet even more customers' demands in the long run.

All these facts makes the trip logging and mileage calculation features a must-have initiative nowadays to stay competitive in the market.

Let's briefly discuss the key benefits they provide:

• Automatically monitor and collect multiple parameters per each trip gathering them by using electronic vehicle trackers.

• Avoid time-consuming logbooks and spreadsheets by automating these processes through a trip logging feature that collects data real-time.

• Decrease labor costs and save time for fleet managers so they focus on more major tasks like business growth and customer development.

• Reach high tax deductions, fuel savings, and performance optimization.

Fleet Management Software Development: Key Steps

With that out of the way, it's high time to define the core steps you need to build your own powerful fleet management system.

1 Set your business goals

First, begin with outlining the core business challenges you currently have, goals you want to achieve, and technical requirements to the future fleet management software.

This will help you get a transparent understanding of the fleet management system pool of features that your business needs.

For instance, if you want to get an all-inclusive control and management tool that will allow you to get real-time data on fuel consumption, then fleet fuel management software is a must-have feature for your fleet management software.

2 Define the right software type

When you finish defining the exact set of features you need and business goals you want to achieve, you can move forward to choosing the relevant fleet management software type.

Below is the list of the most common system types:

• Delivery management

• Fleet maintenance

• Fuel management

• Route planning

• Truck dispatch software

• And others.

Most commonly, the best fleet management software providers offer multiple functionality pool in a single centralized software solution.

This means that you can access all of them by just purchasing a single license for their product.

On the other side, here comes the difference between custom and out-of-the-box fleet management software solutions.

The latter provide multiple ready-made features you may never use and just overpay for them in the long term.

In turn, custom fleet management software offer on-demand functionality and scalability opportunities yet charging larger funds initially.

The choice should depend on your current needs and business goals you want to achieve along with knowing the pros and cons of each software type.

3 Choose the development option

Before you start developing any tailor-made software, you should realize the most cost-effective and suitable option for your project.

Now we want to briefly cover 3 opportunities you have to start building a powerful custom logistics management system.

1. Find a technical partner/CTO

2. Hire freelance development teams

3. Outsource to a fleet management software development company

Final Words

Fleet management software development is a complex and thorny way of building tailor-made functionality that caters to your business needs and challenges.

Think twice whether out-of-the-box functionality is a great option for your company and will let your enterprise grow without any limitations in the future.

If you want to learn more details on fleet management software development, check the full blog post Fleet Management Software Development: Key Features & Costs.