Zonar Offers Fuel-Usage Application

Trucking technology firm Zonar announced the general availability of its Ground Traffic Control Performance fleet-management system, including an application designed to help fleets coach their drivers to reduce fuel consumption.

The company’s ZFuel application tracks a variety of factors that affect fuel usage, including how often the driver uses cruise control, vehicle speed, engine idle time and the gear the truck is in.

ZFuel uses data collected by Zonar’s V3 telematics device, which connects directly to the engine control unit.

“Monitoring your fuel usage by [miles per gallon] alone is the way of the past,” said Brett Brinton, co-founder and CEO of Zonar. “If your fleet isn’t taking into account additional data points that influence fuel consumptions and making appropriate adjustments with your driver, trucks and fleet operations, then you might as was well be tossing your money out the window.”

ZFuel assigns driver efficiency scores to uncover areas in need of improvement. Fleet managers can then use that information to coach their drivers and offer incentives to boost driver retention while reducing fuel usage, the Seattle-based technology firm said.

David Daniels, president of May Trucking, said in the announcement that his company saw initial savings of more than $300 per truck, per month, with ZFuel.