How to reduce fleet fuel costs in KSA? A demand that must be weighing on the minds of most fleet managers among the current global fluctuations in fuel prices.

Despite the notable shift towards the usage of renewable energy sources and electric vehicles in many countries across the globe, the demand for fossil fuels is still high, and their prices have soared significantly over the past few years.

As reported by Statista, global fuel prices rose sharply after 2022 and remained high through 2024, a trend that continues to impact fleet operating costs in 2025.

That’s to say, keeping your fuel costs within budget has become more challenging than ever with these global fuel trends. And, in Saudi Arabia, as the world’s fifth-highest consumer of fuel, monitoring fleet fuel consumption has become as indispensable as maintaining your vehicles.

One way to get this to happen is through leveraging advanced and smart fuel tracking solutions that help you control consumption and increase fleet fuel savings.

In this blog post, we’ll walk you through some of the best practices to save on fuel costs, boost efficiency, and stay competitive in 2025. Let’s jump right into it!

Table of Contents

·       Why Reducing Fleet Fuel Costs Matters More Than Ever in 2025

·       7 Actionable Strategies to Reduce Fleet Fuel Operating Costs in Saudi Arabia

·       What Are the Benefits of Using a Fleet Fuel Management System?

·       Fleet Fuel Management Success Stories

·       Track Every Drop and Maximize Every Mile with Afaqy’s Fuel Management Tools

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Why Reducing Fleet Fuel Costs Matters More Than Ever in 2025

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The fleet industry is facing several challenges, including fluctuations in fuel prices, sustainability initiatives, and disruptions in the supply chain. Thus, staying efficient and compliant has become a necessity for fleet managers to cope with these current trends.

So, let’s tackle two crucial aspects: the changes in fuel prices and high fuel consumption, which showed a remarkable soar over the past few years globally. For instance, in 2022, gasoline and diesel accounted for 90.6% of road transport energy use in the EU, compared to just 6.4% from renewables and biofuels.

Controlling fuel consumption is now the gateway for reduced fuel expenses, eliminated vehicle wear and tear, and boosted profitability.

Here’s a breakdown of why efficient fleet fuel management is now of the utmost importance:

Rising Fuel Costs

Fuel expenses are always affected by several economic and political factors. They are unpredictable, and fleet managers should remain vigilant to avoid being caught off guard by sudden cost spikes or supply bottlenecks.

Regulatory Changes

Monitoring fleet fuel consumption is also important to meet environmental regulations and emissions standards. In Saudi Arabia, the Saudi Energy efficiency program has been initiated to reduce fuel consumption and enhance fleet fuel efficiency.

The program has issued standards and regulations regarding the usage of energy in the transportation sector, which represented around 22% of the total energy consumed in the kingdom. As a fleet manager, setting rules for drivers to not exceed these standards is crucial to stay compliant and ensure your operations are on the right track.

Impact on Profitability

For the majority of fleets, fuel represents a significant portion of total expenditure. Managing fuel usage should be a part and parcel of fleet operations to avoid any costly consequences that may affect your business bottom-line.

7 Actionable Strategies to Reduce Fleet Fuel Operating Costs in Saudi Arabia

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While controlling fuel prices may seem impossible, you can still reduce your fleet's fuel costs by combining groundbreaking technologies with careful action plans.

Whether it is through the use of smart telematics fuel data, fleet fuel management systems, or predictive maintenance, technology will never fail to keep your fleet fuel-efficient.

Let’s highlight some of the pro tips for helping you cut fuel costs and save money:

1.   Leverage Telematics Fuel Data

This is one of the most effective ways to reduce fleet operating costs. Telematics systems are now provided with AI-powered tools that can provide you with actionable insights regarding fuel usage, vehicles’ maintenance, and drivers’ behaviors. This helps you prevent issues before they become problems and keep your vehicles working at their best capacity.

Telematics can also allow you to track mileage and idle times and identify areas for improvement to provide your drivers with the fastest and most appropriate routes that require less miles and idle times.

2.   Monitor Driving Behaviors

Bad driving habits such as harsh braking, speeding, and excessive idle times can also result in high fuel costs. Monitoring drivers’ behaviors in real-time through telematics is essential to decide which areas need to be enhanced.

You can set regular training programs for your drivers to reinforce the importance of fuel-efficient driving and use driver scorecards. Then, you can observe the drivers who follow your instructions and incentivize or reward them to foster a culture of safe driving and achieve your goals.

AFAQY’s smart solutions can include driver behavior monitoring tools that help you observe your drivers’ behaviors such as how they use vehicles, route deviations, increased idle times and many more.

3.   Optimize Your Roads

What is more efficient than selecting the best and fastest routes for your drivers? Modern fleet management systems enable you to plan and dispatch your routes by selecting the most appropriate routes for your drivers so that you can reduce the miles taken and avoid excessive idle times.

Choose smooth roads whenever possible, as rough or uneven surfaces increase rolling resistance and lead to higher fuel usage. Good road conditions help improve overall fuel efficiency for the fleet. Furthermore, steering clear of congested areas helps minimize unnecessary mileage. Ultimately, planning and optimizing routes from the outset has become a necessity rather than a choice.

AFAQY’s Route enables you to not only plan routes, it also helps you optimize on the go according to real-life conditions to ensure smooth and fast trips.

4.   Keep Your Tires Inflated

A study by Oak Ridge National Laboratory looked at how tire pressure affects fuel economy at speeds from 40 to 80 mph using a 2009 Toyota Corolla. They found that dropping the pressure to 75% of the recommended level resulted in a 2-3% decrease in fuel efficiency. At 50% pressure, the impact was more pronounced, 10% decrease at 40 mph and 5% at 80 mph.

Underinflated tires really hurt fuel efficiency, especially at lower speeds and are a serious safety hazard, so proper tire inflation is important for both cost savings and safety.

5.   Establish Speed Limits

As increased speed contributes to high fleet fuel consumption, you have to set speed limits for your drivers. Slower speeds definitely yield lower fuel expenditures. Telematics data can help you detect drivers who follow instructions and those who violate the rules.

6.   Use Fuel Cards

To track fuel purchases and prevent frauds, you have to implement fuel cards. Use a fleet management system that supports the integration with fuel cards to have a full vision of your fuel spending. They also help you set limits on how drivers can spend to deter fuel overspending or unauthorized top-ups.

7.   Utilize Predictive Maintenance

A properly maintained vehicle consumes less fuel, leading to significant savings across your fleet. Using a fleet management system equipped with predictive maintenance tools ensures early detection of issues, keeping vehicles in optimal condition.

Routine actions like reducing engine strain, maintaining correct tire pressure, and cleaning air filters all contribute to better performance and efficiency.

AFAQY’s Fleet offers a powerful solution for vehicle maintenance, using advanced algorithms to predict potential problems and schedule regular maintenance, helping you prevent breakdowns and extend vehicle lifespans.

What Are the Benefits of Using a Fleet Fuel Management System?

Leveraging effective fuel management for fleet vehicles offers a plethora of benefits for fleets of all sizes. From reducing costs, maintaining vehicles, to enhancing drivers’ behaviors and optimizing the total fleet operations, IoT fuel monitoring for fleets has become a must-have for all fleet operators.

Here are some of the profitable benefits of using a fleet fuel management system:

Cutting Fuel Costs

A study has shown that fuel costs account for about 24-38% of the total fleet spending. Therefore, if you are able to control your fleet consumption through using a fuel management system, you will absolutely gain a competitive advantage among others.

Preventing Fuel Theft

By monitoring fuel usage in real-time and using fuel cards integrated with your fleet management system, you can deter theft attempts and prevent any possible losses.

Regulatory Compliance

Fuel management software helps you stay compliant with all the fuel usage standards imposed by the kingdom. In addition, it enables you to stay aligned with the goals of the Saudi vision 2030 which includes reducing carbon emissions.

Improving Driving Behavior

By notifying drivers if speed limits are exceeded or when they deviate from the planned routes, you’ll be able to improve their driving behaviors and spot the areas for improvement.

Also, tracking fuel usage live opens doors for data-driven decisions regarding enhancing your operations and boosting fuel savings.

Fleet Fuel Management Success Stories

Numerous success stories from the implementation of fleet fuel monitoring systems serve as clear evidence that telematics and fleet tracking technologies have become essential tools in modern fleet management. Let's take a closer look at some standout examples:

How a Phoenix Trucking Company Optimized Every Route

A Phoenix based trucking company was struggling with rising fuel costs and delivery inefficiencies. They implemented a fleet management system to optimize routes and driver behavior. Through GPS tracking of fuel usage and consumption in real-time, they found issues with speeding and harsh braking.

They addressed these with targeted driver training and personalized feedback to promote safer and more fuel-efficient driving habits. Route optimization features also reduced mileage by taking into account traffic, road conditions, and schedules.

The Results

·       15% reduction in fuel costs

·       10% increase in on time deliveries

The Power of Fuel Management in a Truck Stop Chain

An eight-site chain of cardlock fueling stations owned by a U.S. truck stop network suffered from artificially inflated fuel prices and supply chain waste. This was because of inefficient carriers and suppliers.

To correct this, they undertook a comprehensive analysis of fuel usage and supply chain logistics and optimized purchasing by switching to more efficient carriers and suppliers. What is more important is that they implemented a dynamic fuel management system that maximized price and delivery schedule optimization.

The Results

Over four years, the company spent over $2.6 million less on improving fuel management. They increased their per-gallon savings from $0.0463 to $0.0611 annually while optimizing operational efficiency across their fuel network.

Track Every Drop and Maximize Every Mile with Afaqy’s Fuel Management Tools

AFAQY’s Fleet is an outstanding fleet management solution that helps you make the most out of your vehicles. Provided by a cutting-edge fleet fuel management system, Fleet helps you save on fuel costs by granting you real-time insights into the total cost of ownership and fuel consumption.

Additionally, it allows you to calculate detailed fuel statistics for each vehicle to uncover cost-saving opportunities, while also enabling live vehicle tracking, centralized fleet management, driver monitoring, and predictive maintenance, all from a single platform.

Schedule a demo with AFAQY today and let’s turn insights into action!

FAQs

How to Monitor Fleet Fuel Consumption?

To monitor fleet fuel consumption effectively, follow these steps:

·       Install fuel sensors and GPS/telematics systems in vehicles to track real-time usage, routes, and driver behavior.

·       Use a fleet management platform to consolidate data, analyze fuel efficiency metrics

·       Integrate fuel cards to monitor purchases and prevent misuse.

·       Optimize routes to reduce mileage and idle time.

·       Perform regular vehicle maintenance to ensure fuel efficiency.

How Do Fuel Monitoring Systems Work?

Fuel monitoring systems work by using a combination of hardware sensors, GPS tracking, and software analytics to measure, track, and report fuel usage in real time.

What is the Best Way to Prevent Fuel Theft in Saudi Fleets?

Preventing fuel theft in Saudi fleets requires a combination of technology, policy enforcement, and driver accountability. Here’s the best approach:

·       Use Telematics with GPS Tracking

·       Implement Fuel Cards with Controls

·       Use a Centralized Fuel Management Platform

References

1. Rooth, B. (2024, April 19). Five simple ways to control and cut fleet fuel costs. Fleet Procurement. https://www.fleetnews.co.uk/features/five-ways-to-cut-fuel-costs

2.  International- U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). (n.d.-b). https://www.eia.gov/international/analysis/country/SAU

3. Reducing fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions of Medium- and Heavy-Duty Vehicles, Phase two. (2019). In National Academies Press eBooks. https://doi.org/10.17226/25542

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