Fuel management systems are used to maintain, control and monitor fuel consumption and stock in any type of industry that uses transport, including rail, road, water and air, as a means of business.
Fuel management systems are designed to effectively measure and manage the use of fuel within the transportation and construction industries. They are typically used for fleets of vehicles, including railway vehicles and aircraft, as well as any vehicle that requires fuel to operate. They employ various methods and technologies to monitor and track fuel inventories, fuel purchases and fuel dispensed. This information can be then stored in computerized systems and reports generated with data to inform management practices. Online fuel management is provided through the use of web portals to provide detailed fueling data usually vis a vis the back end of an Automated Fuel Management system. This enables consumption control, cost analysis and tax accounting for fuel purchases
There are several types of fuel management systems. Card-based fuel management systems typically track fuel transactions based on a fueling credit card and the associated driver PIN. Reports can then be generated based fuel consumption by driver, and data can be directly downloaded. Onsite fuel management systems may employ fleet refueling services or bulk fuel tanks at the site. Fuel is tracked as it is pumped into vehicles, and on-site storage levels can be managed.
Some fuel companies offer total fuel management systems whereby they provide elements of a card-based system along with onsite fuel delivery and refueling services. Mobile fuel management refers to a fleet of fuel trucks or tankers which provide fuel supply to commercial fleets of trucks or construction equipment. May involve combining RFID technology to identify equipment and automated fuel management to append the details of each transaction to a unique piece of equipment. By refueling vehicles in the evening when they are not in use the company can conserve man-hours as the operators do not refuel and the vehicles do not require additional fuel to travel to the refueling station. They may also employ more sophisticated systems that utilize remote data collection to gather specific technical information about the vehicle usage and performance characteristics such as mileage, hours of operation and engine idling time.
The increasing use of Bio Fuel has introduced another challenge in fuel management. With greater water content there will be a risk of microbial growth - depending on the storage conditions the fuel quality will deteriorate over time, leading to clogged filters and loss of productivity.
Tank manufacturers have introduced fuel filtering and cleansing packs which recirculate the tank contents through a series of filters and ultra-violet treatment to kill bacteria. Data from fuel quality instrumentation can be streamed to allow remote monitoring over Internet connections.
Read more about Fuel Management Systems: Hardware
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