By Stephen Goldsmith, Daniel Paul Professor of the Practice of Government and the Director of the Innovations in Government Program at the Harvard Kennedy School.

There are many things, such as using a video telematics system, that can be done to improve fleet management. Advanced data analytics have created a heightened awareness of how marginal reductions in time or cost, seemingly insignificant at the granular level, can add up to big savings over time. Courier and shipping services similar to Plexus Freight know this well, and could teach the public sector some lessons on efficient fleet management.

A UPS truck driver, for instance, makes about 120 deliveries per shift. On average, the company’s fleet of brown trucks makes a total of 16 million deliveries each day, which translates to an imponderable number of possible routes. Each driver has to find custom insurance policies for truck drivers to cover them for these long periods of driving such a big vehicle. To meet this challenge, a team of engineers and mathematicians in Operations Research at UPS worked for nearly a decade to build ORION — the On-Road Integrated Optimization and Navigation program. ORION is a sophisticated algorithm that ensures that UPS vehicles take the most time- and energy-efficient routes while making multiple deliveries. Other businesses have also built their own navigation technology, or if not, often outsource to Riskpulse, (Riskpulse.com), which also has some of the most innovative navigation software on the market. This is a more affordable option for businesses who want the same resources as larger companies but don’t have the in-house resources to build this kind of technology.

Jack Levis, the company’s senior director of process management, oversees the program. He says that ORION saves each driver between seven and eight miles a day, adding up to an annual reduction of 100 million miles driven and 10 million fewer gallons of fuel used. That accounts for $300 million to $400 million in annual savings, and 100,000 metric tons less of CO2 emitted into the air each year.