Fuel theft is an illegal act of siphoning fuel from the fuel tanks. Criminals use various techniques to steal fuel and this leads to fleet owners suffering from massive losses in their business. It is important to take the right measures to avoid becoming a target of thieves. Fuel theft is very common as it is so easy to take fuel out of vehicles. While standard techniques such as fuel caps can be employed to prevent fuel theft, these are usually not very effective as criminals can puncture the tank and steal fuel, leaving your fleets with extensive damage.
Taking into account the cost of stolen fuel as well as the other potential damage, fleet owners need to take potent steps to prevent this crime. Fuel theft is a well-known crime and certain measures can help reduce the potential risks. Here are some of the steps that can be taken to prevent fuel theft:
Educate Your Drivers
It is crucial to educate your drivers about fuel theft and other related threats. Have a one on one discussion with them about how fuel theft impacts the profitability of the business and also puts their life at risk. Fleet managers should explain to drivers if they have any software implemented in the vehicle to keep a tab on fuel theft. Also, if you feel like your drivers are not honest with their work, tell them how stealing fuel can impact their job security.
Take this discussion as an opportunity to inform your drivers of the importance of securely parking the vehicles especially at night. Let them know that it is important to make sure that the fuel caps and gas tanks are locked for basic vehicle safety.
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Use Fences, Cameras or Fuel Yards
By making use of secure fencing and fuel yards, you can make it difficult for thieves to break the vehicle yards, a common target for fuel thieves. It is worth mentioning the bright lights would make your yard a lot visible from the road. Besides this, CCTV cameras can be used to keep an eye on criminals in case a fuel theft happens.
Invest in Fuel Sensors
When fuel sensors and fuel management software are used, alerts about the fuel usage are sent to the fleet manager in real-time. When fleet managers stay updated about the fuel consumption, they are more likely to keep a check if the fuel is stolen or drawn outside of normal working hours.
Defensive Parking
With defensive parking, you can block and protect access to fuel tanks. When vehicles are parked in a certain way, this usually adds one more layer of difficulty for fuel thieves and they might drop the idea of stealing fuel by considering it as a difficult target.
Be Attentive
Finally, it is necessary to keep your eyes open and pay attention to your surroundings. Many times, criminals will notice a yard during the day and then would plan to steal the fuel later in the night. Hence, if anyone is acting suspiciously around the vehicle, be more careful and informed.
It is not wrong to say that fuel theft is a very big problem for logistics and transportation companies. To prevent fuel theft, fleet owners can invest in fleet management software that offers comprehensive fuel management reports. With fleet management solutions, it is so easy to monitor and track the fuel usage as well as the fuel cost. The software can effectively manage and measure the fuel consumption for fleets. You can likewise identify security issues within your fleet after implementing fleet management solutions.
As far as the mechanism is concerned, the fleet management system generates comparison graphs based on the distance travelled by the vehicles to have insights into the fuel consumption. Thus, you can have accurate information about fuel usage and would also be able to identify the causes behind increased fuel consumption. Besides this, fleet managers would have all the updates related to overconsumption of fuel, excess drainage, cost of fuel per mile, driver behaviour and fuel frauds which would eventually decrease operational cost. Hence, companies would be able to save a lot of money in the long run and can take their business to the next level.
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