How to Use Advanced Fleet Management System to Promote Energy Saving in Transportation: A Survey of Drivers’ Awareness of Fuel-Saving Factors

Abstract

Despite the broad application of advanced fleet management systems (FMSs) in third-party logistics (3PL) companies, there is a marginally limited understanding of how to employ them to enhance transport energy efficiency. In a case study of a Chinese 3PL company, this paper analyzed data obtained from the online FMS to assess drivers’ awareness of fuel-saving factors. A questionnaire was primarily designed to investigate the drivers’ awareness of fuel-saving factors based on the reliability and validity test. Then, Extreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost), a machine learning algorithm, was utilized to explore the intrinsic impacts of various factors on fuel consumption with the outputs providing the evaluation basis for individual awareness of the drivers. The results show a significant deviation in the driver’s awareness of fuel-saving factors, among which the three indicators of engine speed, idling condition, and rolling without engine load are seriously underestimated, while the indicators related to the environment are seriously overestimated due to social expectations. In addition, the average speed was found to be the most important fuel-saving indicator besides the load. Based on these findings, this paper recommends that the 3PL companies choose a route with more freeways when planning, and the mileage should be controlled within 800 km as far as possible.