TripZillaWorking in the tour industry can be highly profitable, but when you’re running a fleet of tour vehicles – whether they’re buses or cars – breakdowns can tank your profits. A single issue can disrupt schedules, disappoint customers, and cost you a lot of money in repairs.
However, with a comprehensive approach to maintenance, including predictive AI, many fleet breakdowns are avoidable.
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How comprehensive maintenance can preserve your profits
Comprehensive maintenance is the key to avoiding fleet breakdowns, but it’s not enough to simply take each vehicle in for an oil change, a tune-up, and call it a day. You need to employ several maintenance strategies at once: preventive, predictive, and reactive. Each serves an important purpose that can’t be underestimated.
Preventive maintenance
Preventive maintenance will keep your tour vehicles running smoothly day after day and help you avoid refunds and bad reviews. It all starts with routine services, like regular oil changes, tune-ups, and brake fluid flushes. These services are often skipped or postponed, but that’s a risky approach. If a breakdown occurs in the middle of a tour, you won’t just need to pay for the vehicle repairs – you’ll likely need to refund your customers and manage a flood of bad press.
To avoid these problems, establish regular service intervals based on usage, manufacturer recommendations, and environmental conditions. For example, if you’re running multiple tours throughout the day in the heat, you’ll need a tighter maintenance schedule than someone operating in a cooler climate. If you do maintenance in-house, provide your technicians with a checklist that covers everything from fluid levels and brake pads to belts, hoses, and tyre pressure.
For best results, use a fleet maintenance software platform to track your tasks, set reminders, track compliance, and manage parts inventory. The best applications will use predictive insights for a comprehensive maintenance strategy that will catch both known issues and unexpected failures.
Predictive maintenance
Predictive maintenance takes things a step further by using tools and data to predict potential vehicle issues, allowing you to intervene before a major breakdown. It begins with collecting data from your vehicles, and that’s done by installing sensors on certain vehicle components to collect real-time data on performance and wear. These sensors use cameras, GPS, accelerometers, lidar, radar, cameras, and gyroscopes to capture data and alert you to anomalies that might indicate a problem.
Once you start collecting data from your vehicles, you’ll have the ability to use AI algorithms to analyse that data and identify patterns that point to potential failure. When you have IoT sensors collecting data for you, you can perform maintenance tasks, like replacing parts, before there’s a breakdown.
Reactive maintenance
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Although reactive maintenance isn’t something you should rely on, you can’t predict or prevent every single breakdown that could possibly happen. Sometimes issues slip through the cracks or don’t become problems until it’s too late. You need a reactive maintenance strategy to handle breakdowns you didn’t see coming, which includes damage caused by accidents and vandalism.
Have a plan for how you’ll manage unexpected breakdowns. For example, what tow company will you call? Where will you have the vehicle towed for repair? Who will work on the vehicle to get it running again? Who will inspect the vehicle to make sure it’s ready to go back on the road?
These might seem like simple tasks, but you’ll be thankful you came up with a plan ahead of time, the minute you’re dealing with a problem that came out of nowhere.
Training drivers is a form of maintenance
Your drivers are the first line of defence in identifying potential problems with your vehicles. Training them to spot warning signs can help you apply early interventions. For example, they should be able to notice things like unusual noises or handling issues, along with excessive tyre deflation. Provide your drivers with an official procedure for reporting concerns to make sure you get the information.
Invest in quality parts
While there are many components to a comprehensive maintenance strategy, investing in quality parts is critical. Using cheap parts will contribute to breakdowns and failures. Investing in reliable parts, even though they’re more expensive, will ensure your tour vehicles perform long-term.
Be proactive to keep your tours seamless
Seamless tours start with smart maintenance, and that means being proactive. Preventing tour vehicle breakdowns is about strategy. A proactive approach to maintenance protects your vehicles and your reputation. By combining regular inspections, predictive tech, and well-trained teams, you can keep your fleet running and your customers smiling.
