The impact of driving behaviour on fuel consumption
Fuel is one of the largest cost items for companies with a fleet. This is especially true for trucks: a standard truck consumes an average of 25 to 35 litres of diesel per 100 kilometres. Small differences in consumption add up quickly to significant amounts across a large fleet.
Fuel costs account for an average of 20 to 25 percent of total costs for a transport company. The diesel price has risen sharply in 2026 and the truck toll that came into effect on 1 July is putting further pressure on margins. Driving behaviour is one of the factors that influences consumption and can be managed.
What determines fuel consumption?
Fuel consumption is influenced by various factors. Some can be managed, others cannot. Consider:
The vehicle: size, weight, aerodynamics, maintenance condition and tyre pressure. Regular maintenance and correct tyre pressure have a direct effect on consumption.
External circumstances: route, road surface, gradient, weather conditions and the diesel price. Partly manageable through planning, but not fully controllable. Load weight also plays a role: a more heavily loaded vehicle consumes more, especially on inclines.
Driving behaviour: the way a driver drives. A factor that an organisation can actively manage.
The influence of driving behaviour
The way a driver drives has a direct influence on fuel consumption. This comes down to a number of concrete habits.
Smooth acceleration and braking
Hard acceleration demands a lot from the engine and immediately increases fuel consumption. Hard braking means that built-up speed is lost and fuel is needed again to regain it. Anticipating traffic and accelerating gradually reduces consumption directly. An additional benefit: fewer abrupt driving movements also reduce wear on brake pads and components.
Cruise control
On motorways and flat roads, cruise control maintains a constant speed without unnecessary fluctuations in engine speed. This demonstrably leads to lower consumption. On hilly terrain, cruise control can actually increase consumption because the system compensates for elevation changes. Conscious use on the right roads makes the difference.
Coasting
Releasing the accelerator early and making use of built-up momentum can reduce fuel consumption. In modern engines with fuel cut-off, the engine consumes little to no fuel when coasting. Whether and how much coasting delivers depends on the vehicle and situation, but anticipating early and releasing the accelerator is almost always more economical than continuing to drive and braking late.
Idling
An idling engine consumes fuel without the vehicle moving. With multiple vehicles and long waiting times, this quickly adds up to a significant cost over a year.
Driving speed
A steady driving pace is more economical than constantly varying speed. Air resistance increases quadratically with speed: a truck driving at 90 km/h instead of 80 km/h consumes noticeably more fuel for the same distance.
What does improvement deliver?
Customers using Driver Intelligence achieve an average fuel saving of 6 percent after implementation. By way of illustration, a calculation example:
A fleet of 30 trucks each driving 100,000 kilometres per year and averaging 30 litres per 100 km uses 900,000 litres of diesel per year. A saving of 6 percent means 54,000 fewer litres per year. At an indicative diesel price of 2 euros per litre, this amounts to a saving of approximately 108,000 euros per year.
Fuel savings are not the only benefit. Fewer abrupt driving movements means less wear on brake pads and components, translating into lower maintenance costs and less unexpected downtime. More conscious driving also reduces the risk of damage and accidents, benefiting fleet safety. And lower fuel consumption leads directly to lower CO2 emissions, a concrete contribution to the organisation's sustainability objectives.
Improving driving behaviour in practice
That improving driving behaviour works is evident in practice. Van Werven Infra launched the internal programme 'Beter met de Meter' using Driver Intelligence. Drivers received weekly personal insight into their driving performance on acceleration, braking, cornering and speed, compared with their own previous week and the group average. The results were immediately visible.
"We saw fuel consumption per driver decrease and engagement increase. Drivers started talking to each other about their scores: how did you do that, why am I ranked higher or lower? It became a sport to drive better." Bas Wolff, Van Werven Infra
One of the drivers summarises it well: "My job has meaning again and matters again. Before it was only about production, now it's also about how I drive."
Insight as a starting point
Improving driving behaviour starts with knowing how vehicles are being driven. Without insight, steering is not possible. Many transport companies know there is improvement to be gained, but not exactly where and with whom.
Driver Intelligence in Flowter provides insight into driving performance based on CAN-bus data, GPS and G-sensor data. Per vehicle and per fleet, it becomes visible how driving is performed in terms of fuel consumption, cruise control use, coasting, idling and more. The settings are adjustable per vehicle type and situation, so the analysis always reflects the reality of the operation.
Driver Intelligence is one of the solutions within the GPS-Buddy platform. Flowter also brings together trip registration, emissions reporting, asset tracking and more in one environment. Everything that moves, visible in one platform.
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The information in this article is intended as general knowledge sharing. No rights can be derived from the content. Figures and prices are indicative and may differ from the current situation.