Fleet vehicles are a group of motor vehicles( car, truck or SUV ) owned by an organization like a company or government agency rather than being individually owned.
Any vehicle used for work counts as a fleet vehicle. Typical examples are vehicles operated by car rental companies, taxicab companies, public utilities, public bus companies, and police departments.
Types of Fleet Trucks
A lot of businesses purchase or lease fleet vehicles for delivering goods or for sales representatives to travel to clients. Some privately owned fleet vehicles do exist, known as “grey fleet”. This article will specifically go into details about fleet trucks.
Box trucks
Also knows as straight trucks or cube trucks, box trucks are the most popular truck used by fleets. It is a chassis cab truck with an enclosed cuboid-shaped cargo area.
A box trucks length typically ranges between 10-26 feet. They weigh between 6 to 15 tonnes.
They usually have a “garage-door” like rear door that easily rolls up. They are often used by companies transporting home appliances or furniture or are used as moving trucks which can be rented by individuals.
Most box trucks have a separate cabin and cargo area, however, some box trucks have their cabin and cargo area connected via a door. The main difference between a box truck and a van is that a cargo van is a unibody vehicle while a box truck is created by adding a cargo box to a chassis cab.
Refrigerator Trucks
These trucks carry perishable goods at specific temperatures. They are equipped with refrigeration systems powered by small displacement diesel engines.
They can also be ice-cooled or use carbon dioxide (dry ice) as a cooling agent. Refrigerator trucks are often used to transport produce, dairy, meat, and even drugs or biological samples.
Most of the long-distance refrigerated transport by truck is done in articulated trucks pulling refrigerated semi-trailers.
Dump Trucks
Also known as dumper truck or tipper truck, they are used for transporting loose materials such as sand, gravel or demolition waste.
They are often used by roofers, construction companies, and landscapers. A typical dump truck is equipped with an open-box bed, which is hinged at the rear and equipped with hydraulic rams to lift the front, allowing the material in the bed to be deposited or “dumped” on the ground behind the truck at the site of delivery.
Hence the name dump trucks. There are several different types of dump trucks like transfer dump trucks, straight dump trucks, side dump trucks, super dump trucks and more.
Tank Trucks
Also known as gas truck, fuel truck or tanker truck, they are trucks that are designed to carry liquid or gaseous goods.
Many variants of tank trucks exist due to the wide variety of liquids that can be transported. They tend to be large, they may be insulated or non-insulated; pressurized or non-pressurized.
They can be designed for single or multiple loads (multiple loads can be transported often through internal divisions in their tank).
Companies often turn towards tank trucks when they need to transport a large volume of goods as typical tank trucks can hold anywhere between 5,000 gallons to 12,000 gallons of liquid.
The most popular items transported via tank trucks are gasoline, water, concrete, chemicals, milk, and gasses that need to be pressurized.
Semi-Trailer Trucks
Also called 18-wheelers, big rigs, or tractor-trailers, they are popular fleet trucks that come in many different shapes and sizes.
A semi-trailer truck is the combination of a tractor unit and one or more semi-trailers to carry freight. They often carry freight like cars, building materials, machinery, and more across the country.
Keeping track of fleet vehicles can be an arduous task. A fleet management app can help automate and simplify the process.
Fleet managers use fleet management software to keep track of company cars, typically via GPS, and to communicate with them and time their arrivals and departures from the company premises.
Odoo’s fleet management app is a great option for this task. Odoo is an easy to use management software that helps you to run a business efficiently.
Odoo’s fleet management software provides in-depth descriptions (brand and model, registration number, chassis number, number of doors and seats, color, etc) about each vehicle of your fleet.
Easily manage leasing by specifying contract start and expiry dates, activation and recurring costs, and status of the contract.
The app lets you keep track of the vehicle’s mileage and monitor fuel consumption which helps keep costs down. It also lets you monitor all costs at once.
Identify and trace the money spent by your company for each of the fleet vehicles. Recurring costs of your contracts such as leasing and services contracts are automatically added to your accounting at the beginning of each period of the frequency specified in the contracts, while all other costs like fuel and repairs are automatically added to your report.
It shows all costs associated with a given vehicle or with a type of service. Compare different types of costs (which vehicles cost the most; which services have been performed on which vehicles; etc) by using the reporting tool.
Get really helpful insights about the effective return of each vehicle in order to improve your fleet investment. Just like all Odoo apps, the fleet management software is also integrated with other Odoo apps like accounting and human resources.
Syncoria is a digital transformation company based in Canada and an official Odoo Ready partner.