Short answer. Every vehicle has a record: odometer, usual driver, assignment per day and per round, maintenance plans by kilometre, documents with their dates. The odometer is photographed at the start and end of every round and at every fuel-up, offline, timestamped; the digits are read and confirmed, never typed from memory. The receipt is scanned, litres and amount read from the photo. Consumption per fuel-up is computed, litres divided by the kilometres since the previous fuel-up, times a hundred, following the common definition, and compared with an expected band built on that vehicle’s own history; a fuel-up out of band triggers a question to the driver, with the receipt and both readings, then a qualification by the manager with a coded cause. Maintenance is due by kilometre, from round readings, and alerts before the due point; documents alert at thirty and seven days. Cost per kilometre, fuel and maintenance apart, per vehicle, is the figure that decides which vehicle to replace.
This guide is for the distributor and the delivery company with five to fifty vehicles, the maintenance company whose technicians drive all day, the rental and transport company, and the founder based in France who wants to read every Monday what each vehicle costs. It does not repeat how a round is planned, described in the rounds guide, nor how equipment and its interventions are managed, described in the field service guide; a vehicle is equipment with an odometer, and this guide describes what the odometer adds, then it extends our software engineering page. It does not cover vehicle regulatory obligations: document dates are entered by the manager, the application reminds.
Fleet management, in five layers
Readings are the accented layer: without a photographed odometer, nothing above is true.
Vehicles and drivers. One record per vehicle, equipment in the sense of the field service guide, with an odometer added; assignments per day and per round come from the plan of the rounds guide, and the start reading is signed by the day’s driver. Readings. The odometer photographed at start, end and every fuel-up, on the offline phone following the offline guide, timestamped and kept following the trustworthy photos guide; digits are read from the photo, confirmed by the driver, and a reading lower than the previous one is refused. The receipt is read by the same mechanism as the AI invoice reading guide, litres, amount, station, and corrected if needed.
Computations. Consumption per fuel-up; expected band per vehicle, the median of its past fuel-ups plus or minus a written margin; cost per kilometre, fuel and maintenance over the kilometres read; recomputed every night by the jobs of the background jobs guide. Alerts. Fuel-up out of band, maintenance due, document due; question to the driver through the notifications guide, task to the manager, qualification with cause. Measurement and decision. Cost per kilometre per vehicle in the manager’s dashboard, fuel and maintenance apart, kilometres per driver, qualified anomalies; export of costs per vehicle to accounting through the integration guide.
One van’s record: ten fuel-ups, a band, two anomalies
The figure follows a van since September. Every point is a computation, not a declaration.
Ten fuel-ups, each turned into litres per hundred kilometres from the receipt and the odometer gap: eight between 9.7 and 10.3, inside an expected band from 9.5 to 10.8 built on this vehicle’s median, plus or minus eight percent. Two fall outside: 13.6 on 2 October with a replacement driver, and 15.2 on 4 November, a 62-litre receipt for 408 kilometres. In both cases a question went to the driver with the receipt and both readings; in the first, no justification came back; in the second, the manager checks on Monday. Consumption varies with load, terrain and driving: the band is wide on purpose, and the manager qualifies, not the application.
Maintenance is due by kilometre: the oil change at 90,000, in 3,580 kilometres at this month’s pace, that is an alert in ten days; tyres at 95,000, with wear noted at the fuel-up. Documents: insurance expires in 33 days, the alert went out at 30; inspection in 83. Three figures: 18.4 dinars per kilometre this month, 3,120 kilometres, 312 litres including two fuel-ups out of band. A partner garage receives the oil-change order with the mileage, as in the garage guide. Vehicle, fuel-ups, odometer, dates and costs are a constructed example.
«Consumption is not declared: it is computed from the receipt’s litres and the odometer gap between two fuel-ups, with the photo as evidence.»
The fleet board: six vehicles, one cost per kilometre
The figure shows what the manager reads on Monday: every vehicle compared with itself, and one figure to decide.
Six vehicles, and for each the driver, the month’s kilometres from round readings, actual consumption against the vehicle’s expected, cost per kilometre, maintenance and document state, and a flag. Van B has two fuel-ups out of band; van D overran its oil change by 1,200 kilometres because its driver changed and the alert went to the old one, which the record corrects; truck F has insurance expiring in six days and will be blocked in round planning if not renewed. The truck at 13.1 litres is not an anomaly: its expected is 12.8, it drives loaded.
Cost per kilometre adds fuel and maintenance over the kilometres read: 17.1 dinars for the fleet this month, from 12.3 for the recent utility to 21.2 for the truck. That figure, over six months, decides which vehicle to replace, not age by feel. Refrigerated vehicles add the temperature readings of the cold chain guide to the same record. Vehicles, drivers, kilometres and costs are a constructed example.
«Every vehicle is compared with itself, not with the others: a loaded truck at 13 litres is not an anomaly, a van at 15 is.»
Six real situations, and what the application does
Every row is a sentence heard at a distributor, and the answer is a reading and a computation, not suspicion.
Fuel costs more than planned: consumption is computed per fuel-up and per vehicle, and the out-of-band fuel-up is flagged the same day, with receipt and readings. The receipt does not match the odometer: the computation happens at the fuel-up, and the question goes to the driver immediately, not at month end. The oil change is done too late: maintenance is due by kilometre from round readings, and the alert goes out beforehand, to the day’s driver and the manager.
The insurance expired yesterday: dates are on the record, alerts go out at thirty and seven days, and a vehicle with an expired document is blocked in round planning. Two drivers, one vehicle, one accident: assignment is per day and per round, and the start reading is signed. Which vehicle to replace?: cost per kilometre per vehicle, fuel and maintenance apart, over six months. Who may qualify an anomaly or edit a reading follows the roles guide.
One fuel-up, in six beats
The computation is the accented beat: it is done at the pump, and it compares the vehicle with itself.
Read the odometer: photo, digits read and confirmed, timestamp, offline; a reading lower than the previous one is refused. Scan the receipt: litres, amount, station read from the photo, corrected if needed; the receipt stays attached to the fuel-up. Compute: litres divided by the kilometres since the previous fuel-up, times a hundred; compared with the vehicle’s band. Thirty seconds at the pump, without network.
Flag: out of band, a question goes to the driver with the receipt and both readings; they answer, exceptional load, mountain route, or do not answer. Qualify: the manager codes the cause, load, route, leak, driving, or confirms the anomaly; the band does not adjust itself. Allocate: the cost goes to the vehicle, the driver, the round, and to accounting; a month of receipts fits in an export, not in a box.
Tooling a fleet in 2027, in weeks
Seven weeks, the first without code, and two for records and readings, because without a reading nothing is true.
- What the manager sees: the fleet board on Monday, every vehicle against its expected, open alerts, cost per kilometre, and anomalies to qualify.
- What the driver no longer does: keep receipts, declare the odometer from memory, remember the oil change, discover the expired insurance.
- What is measured: consumption per fuel-up and per vehicle, out-of-band fuel-ups and causes, maintenance done on time, documents up to date, cost per kilometre.
Week 1, rules: the vehicle list, maintenance plans by kilometre, documents and their dates, the band width, qualification causes; with the manager and a driver, because they will do the readings. Weeks 2 and 3, records and readings: vehicle record, assignment per round, photo reading at start, end and fuel-up, offline, with digit reading and refusal of a reading that goes backwards. Week 4, computations and alerts: consumption per fuel-up, band per vehicle, maintenance by kilometre, due dates, questions and qualification.
Week 5, costs: fuel and maintenance per vehicle and per kilometre, allocation to rounds, accounting export. Week 6, take-over: fuel-up history from the box of receipts or the file, with the import guide, starting odometers, initial bands. Week 7, measurement: cost per kilometre per vehicle, qualified anomalies, maintenance on time, Monday review; the founder in France reads the same board in the remote management guide.
- Is a GPS tracker needed in every vehicle?
- Not to start: the odometer photographed at start, end and fuel-up gives the kilometres, and the receipt gives the litres. A tracker can add position and automatic mileage later; this guide builds what works with a phone, and the tracker plugs in without redoing the rest.
- How is consumption computed?
- Receipt litres divided by the kilometres between this fuel-up and the previous one, times a hundred; the lower the value, the more economical the vehicle, following the common definition. The computation happens at the fuel-up, and it is compared with the vehicle’s expected band.
- Where does the expected band come from?
- From the vehicle’s own history: the median of its past fuel-ups plus or minus a margin written by the manager, eight percent in the example. Not from a fleet average, because a loaded truck and an empty utility do not have the same expected value.
- Is a fuel-up out of band fraud?
- It is a question. Consumption varies with load, terrain and driving; the driver answers, and the manager qualifies with a coded cause. Qualified causes over six months tell what comes from the road, the vehicle or behaviour.
- And insurance and inspection dates?
- They are entered by the manager on the vehicle record, and the application alerts at thirty and seven days then blocks the vehicle in round planning if the date has passed. This guide does not cover regulatory obligations: it reminds dates.
- Can the history be taken over?
- Yes, from the photographed receipts in the box or the file, with a dry run; starting odometers and initial bands are set on the first three fuel-ups read. It is the sixth week of the typical calendar.
- How long to set this up?
- Seven weeks in the typical calendar, the first without code and two for records and readings. A company that already has the drivers’ round application and equipment records takes less; one starting from a box of receipts takes all seven.