PART 4 : Optimising Fleet Management for Small Operators: Real-Time Monitoring and ESG Integration

Small fleet, big challenges? This episode is for you. Whether you manage 5 or 50 vehicles, digital tools like real-time monitoring and digital twins aren’t just for the giants—they’re a powerful edge for small and nimble operators too.

We unpack how even basic implementations of real-time visibility can help you reduce costs, boost reliability, and meet urgent service demands with confidence.

In this episode, we explore:

• Why small fleets benefit massively from real-time data, even if it starts as a simple proof of concept
• How to track charging patterns, vehicle readiness, and route suitability to avoid unnecessary energy spend
• What it means to stop reacting to battery scarcity and start optimizing with confidence—knowing which vehicles are ready and which are not
• The value of fleet-wide battery status awareness to enable instant dispatch in emergency response scenarios (like leaks, outages, or blue light services)
• How to move beyond "worst case planning" into live, responsive fleet orchestration
• ESG integration: using digital twins to set, simulate, and track progress on sustainability targets like route decarbonization and emissions reduction
• How digital twins act as both a planning tool and real-time support system, aligning operational continuity with environmental accountability

Whether you're serving the public or running a tight commercial operation, this episode will show how data-informed decisions can help you stay resilient, responsive, and responsible.

#FleetManagement #SmallFleets #DigitalTwin #ESG #EVTransition #ZeroEmissionTransport #RealTimeOperations #EmergencyResponse #SustainableFleets #SmartDispatching #CleanTech #ZeroMission

www.zeromission.io

Reach out to us on Email: info@zeromission.io

Follow us on LinkedIn

Connect with our team Alan Crowley, Kevin Christopher, Brenda Shanahan, Eduardo Espinal, Stephen Breen, Liam Nolan, Callum Hennessy Cian Kavanagh, Niamh Quinn

Transcript

If I was, like, a fleet manager trying to start, I would want to run all of the risks so that I could have the most informed decision going through. So, that's fine if you're a large fleet. Uh, what about if you were just, like, a small fleet? Would it be any value in this for you at all? Um, yeah. So from, from a small fleet perspective, again, i- it kind of comes down to how small is small. But I, I think if you're looking at a fleet of, of, let's say, 50 vehicles or- or less, um, having something in...

just something, even if we would start very basic, very small, very proof of concept, having something that can just give you real-time information that you care about- Yeah. ... is something that's right in front of you in real time. Um, it, it helps you see where things are going. Um, it can help you see kind of how, how, how it is going, I suppose. Um, to repeat myself a small bit there, but even just something as simple as, you know, how fast do things charge?

How much does this cost? Um, simple optimizations that can happen there. For ourselves, we kind of try and optimize for off-peak efficiency. So if you have a car plugged in, you don't want it charging on the, um, more expensive rates and tariffs. You want those kind of off-peak so that you're still charging, you're still using energy, but it's not going to, it's going to cost you less than the least amount it can be.

So even just something as simple as that of, like, when am I charging? When am I driving? Is, is... Am I using the most efficient, uh, cost possible? As you mentioned, um, uh, in terms of, um... I should call it battery scarcity, where it's like you're- Yeah. ... you've that, um... Can't remember the... I know you said it earlier and it's gone from my mind, but the idea of if you track a vehicle, it's like, oh, used 5% this day, 10% this day.

There's no need to charge her up. You're still at a, at a, at a very efficient state. And even just to give that, um, reliability around if the vehicle leaves with 6% charge and around this route, that's fine. You've loads of charge to go. You don't need to top it up again. Um, you, you can just keep it at, at whatever percentage is efficient for that, um, for that route or for, for that trip or for that delivery, depending on what your business is.

We're working with a lot of clients that are response clients, not necessarily who would be like the bulk of me, like that, and they have to respond i- in really quick time. And one of the considerations is, you know, everybody's automatically going to the fact that every vehicle comes back with no battery. That's not true. Um, and so everybody's threatened for that. And so there's a whole... If you were to combine the energy available across all the batteries across the fleet at any one time, you'd find that there's lots of vehicles suitable for dispatch and so forth.

And I suppose it's considering that. So if you were repairing, um, cables in the ground or gas leaks or water leaks and you had to be over to that within one hour, you'd have to recalibrate the way that you assign your on-call duty because you'd have to check which vehicles have enough power in them to get them to where they need to be. So you'd have to build out the worst case scenario, but then also be able to, to manage it real time so that you could have a holistic view across your fleet to see which vehicles are suitable, which ones, uh, have the right equipment in them, filter by that.

So I suppose that's really important component part of the zero-emission system that allows us to manage in real time and respond really quickly. So we're not just building out worst case scenarios, we're also managing life. And I think that's kind of unique in the market as well and very important. So it's not just, as you rightly said, the what ifs. It's the what if it actually does happen today, how do I respond to it?

Which is really important. So from my perspective, the continuity of service is the number one thing you have to consider because whether you are a commercial organization or a blue light organization, you have to be able to deliver the service that people have paid for through their taxes or privately. Um, how... and that's really important, but then how would you use the digital twin to meet your ESG objectives as well?

So yeah. So for, for ESG, I think I covered some of the points. It, it... the... where it helps in the ESG point of view is it helps measure and it helps show what you're actually achieving from, um, an ESG point of view. So even for something as simple as, um, because of your, uh, digital twin representation, you have updated certain routes to be, uh, no-emission routes. But that was something that was informed by your, let's say, data essentially.

Um, you can show like a carbon footprint, um, reduction, uh, in, in those routes because of this. Um, so I think it's more of a way of coalescing the data that's there, giving it to you as the business owner and figuring out, okay, well which routes can I actually, um, make no-emission routes? But then it also will inform your ESG goals as well. So when you're setting your ESG goals, you have that representation of here's where the business is at today.

What goals do I want to set for that? And then how can I achieve that? And then you can do stuff like, well actually if I change stuff around in the digital twin scenario, um, is this ESG goal achievable or do we need to do more here? So if you're... again, it just gives you that best headspace and that best heads up to try and achieve, um, those ESG goals.