Logistics Fleet Management Software for High-Mileage Trucks and Vans

In logistics the vehicles are the product. When a truck is off the road the load still has to move, so a replacement is hired, another driver works overtime or the customer waits. Every missed service costs far more than the workshop invoice suggests.

• Mileage runs ahead of the calendar. An intercity truck can reach its next service in two or three weeks, so a sheet that says “service in March” is wrong by mid-February.
• The fleet is mixed. Tractor units, rigid trucks and vans each have their own intervals, parts and costs.
• Costs are split across depots. Repairs are paid at one branch, tyres at another and insurance at head office, so nobody sees the full cost of one truck.
• Drivers rotate between shifts, so it is hard to know who reported a problem and whether it was fixed.

For high-mileage vehicles, kilometres are the only reliable service trigger. Axpense stores each interval in kilometres, shows how many are left before each vehicle is due, and lists the vehicles already overdue.

The table is only an example of why date-based schedules fail in transport; always follow the manufacturer’s schedule.

Tyres, brake pads and filters wear fastest. Record them as spare parts and Axpense keeps track of which part went into which truck. For the wider picture, see our fleet maintenance software.

A defect found in the yard costs a repair; the same defect on the highway costs a tow and a late load. Logistics fleets rely on pre-trip checks of tyres and wheel nuts, brakes, lights, mirrors, fluid leaks, coupling and load securing.

In Axpense you build the checklist once and drivers or yard supervisors complete it per vehicle. Each item is marked pass or fail, and failed items are recorded on the vehicle so the workshop and fleet manager see the same list.

Consider a hypothetical carrier with 20 tractor units, 15 rigid trucks and 10 city vans across two depots. Services are tracked by date in a spreadsheet, and most breakdowns are reported by a driver’s phone call.

The team registers all 45 vehicles in Axpense with current odometer readings and sets intervals per type. On the first review, several tractor units show as overdue in kilometres even though the spreadsheet said “next month”, so those are booked first. Pre-trip checklists start catching worn tyres and faulty lights before departure.

After a quarter of recording costs per vehicle, the manager can compare cost per km between the three groups and see which older trucks cost most to run. With book values from vehicle depreciation and lifecycle management, that becomes a replacement plan backed by numbers.