What Key Revenue Numbers Should You Monitor for Fleet Efficiency?

Every fleet manager is aware of the fundamentals: Maintain the equipment, manage the drivers, and control the expenses. But which numbers are actually driving or draining your revenue?

There are hundreds of data points you can track across your fleet. The trick isn’t in tracking more data. It’s in tracking the right data, the KPIs that tell you how much revenue your fleet is capable of generating per mile, per asset, and per trip.

This blog breaks down the most important revenue-focused fleet metrics equipment managers should monitor to improve the operation’s output and maximize earning potential and how Clue helps you capture them in real time.

‍

What is Fleet Efficiency?

Fleet Efficiency describes the effectiveness of using a fleet of vehicles or equipment in furthering operational objectives and incurring as little cost, downtime and wastage as possible. 

In construction, logistics, and other industries that use a lot of vehicles in the fleet, it is a gauge of how efficient assets such as trucks, excavators or loaders are performing based on their intended purpose.

‍

Common Causes of Fleet Inefficiency

Fleet performance often breaks down long before the equipment hits the road or job site. Many issues start with outdated systems, manual tasks, and lack of visibility in the operations center. 

Here’s a closer look at what gets in the way:

Slow Scheduling and Dispatch

When dispatchers rely on calls, texts, or outdated software to assign equipment or schedule deliveries, the process slows down. It becomes harder to match the right asset to the right job, leading to double bookings, long idle times, and missed windows.

Delayed Invoicing and Payments

Back-office delays to process paperwork can delay revenue even where work is completed in time. When shipping/usage logs are not promptly delivered to accounting, invoices will be pushed, this damages cash flow and generates unnecessary billing cycle interruptions.

Poor Maintenance Tracking

It is risky to attempt to control maintenance using spreadsheets or memory. It is hard to keep track of scheduled service, keep track of previous repairs, or even see wear which later becomes a serious effect without an appropriate system. The result? Greater downtimes and increased repair expenditures.

Lack of Useful Data

What you cannot measure you cannot improve. Without real-time, specific information about your fleet, idle time, fault codes, fuel consumption, or work hours, you are on guesswork. It is difficult to detect issues or change working processes in that way.

‍

The Fleet KPIs That Directly Affect Revenue

1. Vehicle Utilization Rate

A vehicle that sits idle is a sunk opportunity. Insurance, depreciation, and licensing don’t stop just because the truck isn’t moving and neither does your overhead.

Vehicle utilization tracks how often and how effectively a vehicle is used to complete billable work. Whether it’s logged hours, loaded miles, or shifts per day, this KPI shows whether your assets are doing the work they were bought to do.

Low utilization often signals:

• Overcapacity
• Poor dispatching
• Inefficient routing

Utilization in trucking has been very high. For example, FTR forecast Class-8 truck utilization at 95.8% in 2022 and 91.6% in 2023 – well above the 20‑year average of 91.2%. Heavy equipment (e.g. rental fleets) typically run much lower. Q2 2024 data show overall equipment rental utilization 61.6%.

Clue’s utilization makes it easy for equipment managers to spot underutilized assets by showing usage patterns across sites, shifts, and date ranges. You get a clear view of which machines are generating work—and which are costing you.

More utilization = more jobs completed = more direct revenue.

2. Load Efficiency and Cargo Utilization

Every mile your fleet drives without a full load or with only partial capacity leaves money on the table. These are your underutilized revenue opportunities.

Monitoring load efficiency lets you:

• Consolidate deliveries to increase billing per trip
• Plan better routes for higher cargo density
• Reduce partial-load inefficiencies

With Clue’s equipment usage tracking and site movement logs, fleet managers can correlate asset movements with actual delivery volumes or shift activity so you can identify low-load patterns and adjust accordingly.

3. Empty Miles

Empty or “deadhead” miles are when a vehicle travels without any cargo. You still pay for fuel, driver time, and wear—but get nothing in return.

Reducing empty miles:

• Increases billable mileage per trip
• Lowers cost per revenue-generating mile
• Improves overall fleet profitability

Clue’s dispatch module helps prevent these wasted trips by assigning the right vehicle to the right task with full visibility into availability and location. Real-time telematics and location tracking reduce the chances of sending out empty hauls or the wrong equipment.

Telematics use is now widespread and growing. Berg Insight reports 80 million commercial telematics units active globally in 2023.

The more time your trucks spend hauling, the more they earn. 

4. Downtime

When a vehicle is down, it isn’t just costing you—it’s actively preventing revenue generation.

Average vehicle downtime tells you how much of your fleet is unavailable for jobs. Even one day down can lead to:

• Missed jobs or contracts
• Last-minute rentals that eat profits
• Lost customer trust

Downtime is costly. One analysis finds $448–$760 lost per vehicle per day and $79/hr when assets sit idle. In other words, every hour of unexpected downtime typically costs on the order of $75–$80 in forgone revenue

With Clue’s real-time equipment health monitoring, you get early warnings before failures happen. Add to that automated work orders and work tracking and you are minimizing downtime before it begins.

Extended working asset life by reducing downtime due to improved maintenance schedules and quick repairs opens up more work opportunities to generate more income.

5. Preventive Maintenance Compliance

Unexpected breakdowns don’t just cost money, they cost jobs.

Preventive Maintenance (PM) Compliance checks to see whether your fleet is serviced in time. This is because when the compliance is high, the surprises are reduced, delays are reduced and much as has been planned is actually done.

Why it matters for revenue:

• You avoid pulling vehicles off the schedule
• Jobs stay on track, and contracts stay intact
• Customers get what they’re paying for, on time

Many fleets fall well below ideal on-time PM. For instance, one consulting case reported a fleet starting with <30% scheduled PM tasks completed on time.

Clue automatically schedules and tracks PM compliance based on usage hours, mileage, and fault codes. You’ll always know what’s due and what’s overdue before it turns into a breakdown.

A truck in the shop without a plan is a job that never happened.

‍

How Clue Tracks Fleet KPIs and Generates Reports

1. Real‑Time Tracking of Utilization, Loads & Empty Miles

Clue collects continuous telematics and jobsite data—like hours of operation, GPS location, cycle counts, load volumes, and speed. This live production data feeds dashboards and flags indicators such as extended idle times, partial loads, and deadhead miles.

• Utilization dashboards show usage hours by vehicle, shift, and site, highlighting underuse.
  
• Load efficiency reports surface low-load trips, enabling fleet managers to consolidate loads and improve earning per mile.
  
• Empty-mile alerts from dispatch tools help prevent sending out unprofitable runs.
  

2. Downtime & Preventive Maintenance Monitoring

Clue integrates asset fault codes, mileage, and runtime to automate maintenance triggers. It generates:

• Alerts for scheduled inspections or overdue PM, before failure occurs.
  
• Work-order automation that assigns repairs and logs completed service.
  
• Downtime analytics showing how long each asset is offline by type, model, and jobsite.
  

3. Custom KPIs & Financial Overview

Users can define and monitor custom KPIs, like utilization rate, downtime percentage, deadhead miles, PM compliance, fuel efficiency, and total cost of ownership (TCO).

Clue correlates:

• Revenue data with utilization
  
• Repair, maintenance, depreciation and fuel costs
  
• Equipment lifespan projections
  

This consolidated view supports decisions on asset replacement, repairs vs rental, and fleet expansion.

4. Analytics Dashboards & Shareable Reports

Clue reports and analytics provides:

• Live dashboards with key visuals (utilization, idle time, load counts, downtime, TCO, CO₂ emissions).
  
• Project-based breakdowns to compare equipment performance and costs per site or contract .
  
• Maintenance & warranty reports showing compliance dates, repair histories, open work-orders .
  
• Exportable PDFs and dashboards for internal reviews or executive presentations.

Master Your Revenue KPIs

Want more tips to navigate revenue-driving fleet KPIs? Explore our playbook for practical insights on boosting utilization, reducing waste, and maximizing earnings.

Optimize with Clue⟶

‍

Final Thoughts

There’s no shortage of fleet KPIs out there. But if your goal is to increase how much your fleet earns, the real focus should be on direct revenue metrics. 

The best fleet managers don’t just chase cost savings; they focus on maximizing earning potential. That means keeping every vehicle on the road, every trip fully loaded, and every opportunity billed.

Clue brings all these insights into one place. From live asset tracking to automated maintenance, dispatching, and job planning, Clue gives you a complete view of how your fleet earns, where it leaks revenue, and how to fix it, fast. 

More uptime. More loads. More revenue. That’s Clue.