Large Telco saves fuel with GPS

Gary Eckstein General Technology 3 , , ,

In Telstra’s* latest ‘Half Year Analyst Briefing Presentation‘ for the half-year ending December 2008 there is a line in a slide under the titled ‘Environmental Social & Governance’ stating ‘GPS reducing fuel consumption by 6%’ (see image at the end of this post). This is a very interesting statement indeed. On the face of it, this statement suggests that GPS may enable organizations to use less fuel. Unfortunately there is no attached and documented supporting evidence of how the 6% was calculated (i.e. how was a 6% fuel consumption saving attributed to GPS and what population sample was used)?

The notion of using GPS to reduce fuel consumption is a reoccurring theme for Telstra:

  • From Telstra’s Corporate Responsibility Report (2008): ‘We also continued to install GPS systems in technicians’ vehicles to link into the job dispatching system, to improve route efficiency and productivity’.
  • From ‘Towards a High-Bandwidth, Low-Carbon Future’: ‘Telstra is also utilising information technology to enable fuel efficient travel patterns. Telstra has installed GPS in more than 4,500 or 27% of its vehicles, and is committed to increase this to achieve a 5% reduction in fuel consumption while increasing productivity by 15%’.

Telstra must be commended on using technology such as GPS to reduce fuel consumption. Whether the financial expenditure and environmental impact on technology however provides a positive outcome when measured against the fuel savings is unknown. It is a positive outcome that Telstra is promoting environmental awareness.

*Telstra is a large Australian communications company which provides integrated telecommunications across fixed line, mobiles, broadband, information, transaction and search and pay TV. Telstra subsidiaries include; Bigpond, Trading Post, Sensis, White Pages, Yellow Pages, Foxtel and Whereis.

Telstra Disclaimer: Please note that at publication date of this post I am providing ITIL Process Mapping services for Telstra therefore advise that I do not represent Telstra in any information on this website. The views expressed in this post are mine only and do not necessarily reflect the views of Telstra.