There are so many offers for fuel on the market now that a simple carrier is dazzled. One can find fuel cards from major suppliers, refueling using bar and QR codes, refueling via STS and online services with thousands of gas stations …
What should you choose? We talked to cargo carriers specializing in long-distance transportation of goods and share our findings with you:
1. Price. The most important factor, especially if you are the owner of a small park and do not have the budget of large companies. It is important to calculate what kind of discount is offered to legal entities or individuals, and how much you can save. It often occurs that an advertised discount is very attractive, but in fact you cannot get it immediately — only after several refueling via service. It is likely you will refuel with surcharges. Read the contract carefully and look for the paragraph «discount from the first refueling».
2. Ease of use. Preference is given to those services where reports for all the gas stations are generated in one window. What does it mean?
Let’s say your truck travels from Yekaterinburg to Moscow and refuels at gas stations of different brands on the way. To generate a fuel report, one have to open several different programs, and then create a single document. It takes time that can be spent on more important things — finding a cargo, for example.
Therefore, a single service, where several gas station networks are included, is more convenient and more often used by cargo carriers. And if the reports on gas stations for legal entitites are generated in one program or account, considering the final price, this will make you accountant mush happier and grateful for saving time.
3. Limits. As they say, every drop is priceless! Therefore, if you are aware of the fuel consumption along the route, then set a limit and sleep peacefully — you will not be able to exceed a predetermined amount of money or liters. By the way, if you want to choose the type of the limits (in rubles or liters), then we recommend that you consider this feature while choosing a service.
4. Geography of gas stations. Thousands of thousands of gas stations in the asset of a service or brand is great, but is it necessary? As for intercity transportation, geography is more important here. Why do you need so many petrol stations, if there are only several of them on your main routes. Carriers recommend to study the map of petrol stations carefully and evaluate the convenience of their location, in order to choose the best petrol stations along the route, both in terms of price and quality. This is even better if the creator of the fuel service is a transport company. Such company knows firsthand the problems of cargo carriers with gas stations and knows how to solve them.
5. Refueling by VRC. This factor is not entirely obvious, but an important one. We are used to fuel cards, but this is not always convenient.
Let’s recall the example with the route from Yekaterinburg to Moscow. The truck refueled at 5 gas stations of different brands – you have to use from 1 to 5 fuel cards. And what if the card is lost on the way? And if you are a freight forwarder with involved transport? Sending refueling cards to the involved fleet is still a headache for every legal entity … Вut if you can refuel via the original VCR, there is less hassle for driver / dispatcher and supervisor.
Which services to prefer, which brands to cooperate with — the choice is yours. But as a rule, economy and convenience come first.
For example, the service MONOPOLY.Fuel specializes in creating solutions for intercity freight carriers. The simplicity and efficiency of adding to the service with only several documents, as well as round-the-clock technical support and a convinient personal account have already been appreciated by hundreds of freight carriers. Save fuel and time with MONOPOLY.Fuel!
Leave a request for adding to MONOPOLY.Fuel can be on the service website. http://monopoly.ru/platform/fuel?utm_source=blog
