Your fleet has 50 trucks. How many are actually making you money?

Part four of a series. Previously: Your GPS tracker is working. So why are you still losing money?

A company can own 50 trucks and still have a 20-truck problem.

Not because 30 trucks are broken. Not because they are stolen. Not because they are sitting in a workshop.

They may be perfectly functional.

They start. They move. They return. They get fuel. They get serviced. They appear on the GPS dashboard.

And yet, some of them may be quietly costing the company more than they contribute.

That's the part of fleet management that doesn't show up on a map.

A vehicle being operational is not the same as a vehicle being productive.

The question most fleet owners don't ask

Ask a business owner how many vehicles they have and they'll probably know immediately.

Ask how many are currently operational and they'll probably know that too.

But ask:

"How much profit did each vehicle generate last month?"

The answer becomes much harder.

That's not necessarily because the business is badly run. Fleet economics are complicated.

Revenue may be recorded at company level. Fuel may be purchased centrally. Maintenance may be handled by different workshops. Drivers may make several trips. Some vehicles may carry different types of loads.

The result is that the fleet can become one large expense category.

And once everything is grouped together, it becomes difficult to see which vehicles are performing and which ones are consuming resources without generating enough return.

A truck can be busy without being productive

Consider two trucks. Truck A travels 8,500 km in a month. Truck B travels 5,500 km.

At first glance, Truck A looks like the better vehicle.

Now look closer.

Suddenly, the distance travelled tells you very little.

Truck B may be the better asset despite travelling 3,000 fewer kilometres.

This is why kilometres alone are a poor measure of fleet performance.

The fleet owner's trap: "at least the truck is working"

This sentence sounds reassuring. It isn't always.

A vehicle can be moving inefficiently, carrying low-value loads, travelling empty, consuming excessive fuel, spending too much time waiting, breaking down frequently and being underutilised, and still technically be "working."

The problem is that businesses often measure activity rather than productivity.

There's a difference.

A truck that moves 10,000 kilometres isn't necessarily more valuable than one that moves 6,000.

The real question is: what did those kilometres produce?

Empty kilometres are not free

This is one of the easiest ways to lose money without noticing.

Imagine a truck travels Lagos → Benin → Lagos.

The outbound journey carries a load. The return journey is empty.

The truck still consumes fuel. The driver still gets paid. The tyres still wear. The vehicle still depreciates. The engine still accumulates operating hours. The company still carries the risk of an accident.

The only thing missing is revenue from the return journey.

Now multiply that empty journey across dozens of vehicles. The numbers become significant.

This is why fleet optimisation isn't simply about tracking where trucks go. It is about understanding why they go there and what they produce when they get there.

Your GPS can show you the empty journey

And this is where telematics becomes useful.

A GPS system can reveal where the truck started, where it went, how long it stayed, when it returned, which route it used and how long the journey took.

But GPS alone doesn't know whether the truck was carrying ₦20 million worth of cargo or returning empty.

That information needs to be connected to operational records.

This is why the future of fleet management isn't simply more tracking. It is better integration of information.

What is the real cost of a truck?

The purchase price is only the beginning. A commercial vehicle carries a long list of costs.

Acquisition. Purchase or financing.

Fuel. Often one of the largest recurring expenses.

Maintenance. Servicing, repairs and replacement parts.

Tyres. A significant expense for high-mileage commercial vehicles.

Insurance. Annual operating cost.

Driver. Salary, allowances and associated expenses.

Registration and compliance. Government and operational requirements.

Depreciation. The vehicle loses value as it ages and accumulates mileage.

Downtime. Potentially one of the most overlooked costs.

Tracking and technology. Hardware, connectivity, software and support.

Put all of that together and the question changes.

You're no longer asking "how much did this truck cost?"

You're asking "how much does this truck cost me to keep productive?"

The truck sitting in the yard is still costing you

A parked vehicle may appear harmless. No fuel is being consumed. No driver is driving it. No tyres are wearing on the road.

But the company may still be paying for insurance, financing, depreciation, registration, tracking, parking, and the capital tied up in the asset.

And if that vehicle could have been generating revenue, there is also an opportunity cost.

A truck that sits unused for three months hasn't necessarily saved the company money.

It may have simply stopped producing it.

Downtime is more than a repair bill

Suppose a truck normally generates ₦250,000 in revenue per productive day.

It goes into the workshop for seven days. The repair bill is ₦500,000.

Management records:

Maintenance expense: ₦500,000.

But that isn't necessarily the full cost. There may also be ₦1.75 million in potential lost revenue.

That's before considering delayed customers, replacement vehicles, driver costs, rescheduling, emergency logistics and reputation damage.

The mechanic's invoice captures the cost of fixing the truck. It doesn't capture the economic cost of not having the truck available.

That distinction matters.

When does a truck become a liability?

Not every old truck should be replaced. That's another simplistic assumption.

An older vehicle can still be profitable if it is reliable, appropriately utilised and inexpensive to operate.

Likewise, a relatively new vehicle can become a poor asset if it has recurring problems, low utilisation or excessive operating costs.

The better question isn't "how old is the truck?"

It's "what is this truck costing us compared with what it produces?"

That is a much more useful question.

Your most expensive truck may not be your most valuable truck

Imagine a fleet containing Truck A at ₦80 million and Truck B at ₦60 million.

Truck A is newer and more expensive.

But Truck B works more consistently, has fewer breakdowns, carries better loads, uses less fuel, spends less time idle and has better utilisation.

Which one is the better investment?

The answer isn't necessarily Truck A.

Asset value and business value are not the same thing.

Fleet management should change how you think about vehicles

The traditional question is "how many trucks do we have?"

A better question is "how efficiently are our trucks being used?"

An even better question is "what does each truck contribute relative to what it costs us?"

That shift is important.

Because once you start thinking this way, your fleet stops being a collection of vehicles.

It becomes a portfolio of business assets.

And portfolios need to be measured.

What should you measure?

There isn't one universal formula for every fleet. A haulage company, a construction company and a passenger transport operator will have different economics.

But several measurements are broadly useful.

These measurements start telling a much more interesting story than a live map.

But there is a problem: most companies have the data in different places

This is where fleet management gets difficult.

GPS data is in one system. Fuel records are somewhere else. Maintenance records may be in spreadsheets. Trip revenue may sit with accounts. Driver information may be with HR or operations. Workshop invoices may be sitting in someone's WhatsApp messages.

Nobody sees the whole picture.

So management makes decisions based on fragments.

The fleet manager sees vehicle movement. The accountant sees expenses. The workshop sees repairs. Operations sees deliveries. The CEO sees the final financial result.

Nobody sees the entire vehicle.

That is a serious management problem.

The real opportunity is connecting the pieces

Imagine being able to look at one vehicle and see where it travelled, how long it operated, how much fuel it consumed, how much time it idled, how often it required maintenance, how much downtime it experienced, how the driver operated it, and how much work it performed.

Now management can ask a much more intelligent question:

"Is this vehicle worth keeping?"

That is a completely different level of fleet management.

This is where telematics becomes more than GPS

Modern telematics can combine information from multiple vehicle systems.

A professional heavy-duty tracker such as Teltonika's FMC650 supports interfaces including CAN/J1939, J1708, RS232 and RS485, allowing it to interact with vehicle systems and additional equipment depending on the application.

That capability matters because a fleet manager may need more than location. They may need information about engine operation, vehicle parameters, fuel, driver behaviour, operating hours and other connected equipment.

The objective isn't to collect information simply because the technology allows it.

The objective is to answer business questions.

More vehicles doesn't always mean more profit

This may be the most important point in the entire article.

Companies often celebrate fleet expansion.

"Last year we had 30 trucks. Now we have 50."

It sounds like growth.

But growth in fleet size creates additional capital requirements, fuel costs, maintenance, drivers, insurance, management complexity, downtime exposure and replacement costs.

If the additional vehicles aren't being utilised effectively, the company may simply be increasing its cost base.

Fleet growth should be measured by productive capacity, not just vehicle count.

Fifty poorly utilised trucks can be a worse business than twenty-five highly productive ones.

Sometimes the answer is not another truck

This is where good data can save a company from making an expensive decision.

Management might think: "We need five more trucks."

But perhaps the existing fleet is only operating at 60% utilisation.

Before buying five more vehicles, management should ask why the existing vehicles aren't being fully utilised.

Maybe the problem is scheduling. Maybe there aren't enough loads. Maybe vehicles spend too much time waiting. Maybe return trips are empty. Maybe maintenance is causing excessive downtime. Maybe the fleet is simply larger than the business currently requires.

Buying another truck won't solve those problems. It may make them worse.

Sometimes the answer actually is another truck

The opposite is also true.

A properly managed fleet can reveal genuine capacity shortages.

If vehicles are consistently operating at high utilisation, loads are being turned away and available vehicles are regularly committed, expansion may make perfect economic sense.

The difference is that the decision is based on evidence.

That's what good fleet data should do. It shouldn't tell you what decision to make. It should help you make a better one.

What Primera believes

At Primera Automations, we don't think the goal of fleet management is to help businesses own more vehicles.

The goal is to help them get more value from the vehicles they already have.

That may mean improving utilisation. It may mean reducing fuel losses. It may mean identifying unnecessary downtime. It may mean improving driver behaviour. It may mean monitoring fuel. It may mean using CAN/J1939 data on heavy-duty vehicles.

It may even mean telling a customer that a particular vehicle is no longer economically sensible to keep.

That's an important distinction.

A fleet-management company shouldn't simply help you buy more technology. It should help you make better decisions about your fleet.

So, how many of your 50 trucks are actually making you money?

You may know exactly where all 50 are. That's useful.

But it's not the final question.

Ask instead:

Which ones are productive? Which ones are underutilised? Which ones consume too much fuel? Which ones spend too much time in workshops? Which ones generate the most revenue? Which ones cost more to operate than they should?

Which ones are carrying the business, and which ones are quietly draining it?

You may discover that your fleet doesn't have a tracking problem. It has a measurement problem.

And you may discover something even more uncomfortable:

You don't need more trucks. You need to get more out of the ones you already own.

The bottom line

A fleet is not profitable because it is large.

It is profitable because its assets are productive, available, controlled and economically justified.

GPS tracking can show you where your vehicles are. Telematics can show you more about what they are doing.

But management has to connect that information to money.

Because ultimately, the question isn't "how many trucks do we have?"

It's "how much value are those trucks creating for the business?"

And if you can't answer that question for each vehicle, you may know your fleet very well.

You just may not know your fleet's economics.

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Fleet management should not simply tell you where your assets are. It should help you understand what those assets are costing, what they are producing, where they are underperforming and what management can do about it.

Because owning 50 trucks is an asset only when those trucks are creating value.

Otherwise, you're not building a fleet. You're accumulating costs.

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The series so far: Why installing 500 trackers doesn't mean you have a fleet management system, The problem with selling technology without support, Your GPS tracker is working. So why are you still losing money?

Want to know which of your vehicles are earning their keep? Ask us to look at your fleet data, or see how Primera Fleet works.

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Sources & further reading

• Federal Road Safety Corps, Road Transport Safety Standardization Scheme (RTSSS)
• Federal Road Safety Corps, vehicle maintenance requirements for fleet operators (PDF)
• Nigerian Communications Commission, Type Approval
• Teltonika, FMC650 technical documentation
• Teltonika, FMC920 technical documentation