I just attended the press conference for the NACFE Run On Less effort. It had seven different tractors, from 7 different fleets running for 17 days in real world conditions. In fact, some of the time they were running in the UN-real conditions of Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Irma. All told, this “virtual fleet” achieved 10.1 average mpg. Compared to the industry average today of 6.4 mpg, that’s fabulous. NACFE, consistent with its mission of providing anonymous information from its member fleets, won’t reveal what truck and what driver did the best. But, I talked with the drivers and, as expected, they did compete against each other some. They had fun with the effort.
Today is also the last day of the yearlong FedEx Cup in golf. I’ve been anxiously reading the scenarios for the top 5 or top 30 throughout the week. The payday comes today when someone gets the cup and an extra $10 million dollars. Lots of pressure of course. But lots of fun for us fans.
Put the two together, and lets have a handicap system for fuel economy that takes into account road conditions, weather conditions, load weights, and more. It could be much like the handicap system in golf that allows a 16 handicapper like myself to play against either a 5 handicap or a 22 handicap. We could normalize all the information to determine if a driver was doing better or worse than another driver, even though the conditions were very different. With the advanced modeling we have available, I’m sure it could be done. Let’s gamify fuel economy.
Now, take it one step further. Let’s have a yearlong contest with a big paycheck at the end. We just had contests for the best driver and the best technician. Maybe we could have the most fuel efficient driver and the most fuel efficient fleet over a year get a big paycheck from a fuel company, a third party logistics company, or some other sponsor. Maybe the government would sponsor it through the SmartWay program?
We have an amazing industry that the country and the world cannot live without. Let’s make it fun—Gamify It!
