Guide

Fleet analytics for trucking: what to measure, and three ways to get there

Every trucking company has the data: the TMS has the loads, the ELD has the miles, the fuel card has the gallons, the settlements have the pay. Fleet analytics is putting them together so you can see what each truck, lease and customer actually makes you. Here is what to measure, and an honest look at TMS reports, Power BI and connected systems.

By Djuro Kolundzija, founder of Nerivo. Started his own trucking company in 2012 and grew it past 100 trucks.

What fleet analytics should answer

What does each truck cost per mile, and which ones are well over the fleet?
Which trucks, leases and owner operators make money, per mile, on the days they ran in that role?
Which customers and lanes pay the least per loaded mile, and which make you wait?
Where is money leaking: detention not billed, fuel bought out of network or over the tank, lease fees not collected, chargebacks short of what you paid?
Which drivers need coaching, on what?

The trucking KPIs that matter, and how to calculate them

KPI	How it is calculated
Cost per mile	Fuel + driver pay + tolls + repairs + fixed costs (truck payment, insurance, plates, ELD), divided by miles. For company trucks only: owner operators and leased-out trucks pay their own way back through settlements.
Revenue per loaded mile	Linehaul + fuel surcharge + accessorials, divided by loaded miles: what the loads pay you.
Deadhead %	Empty miles ÷ (loaded + empty miles).
Operating ratio	Operating costs ÷ revenue. Under 100% is profit; most fleets live between 85% and 95%.
Profit per mile by part of the fleet	Revenue + chargebacks − driver pay, fuel, tolls, repairs and fixed costs, on the days a truck was a company truck, leased out, or an owner operator’s.
MPG vs fleet	Each truck’s miles ÷ gallons, against the fleet’s. Compare like with like: a reefer burns more.
Unbilled detention	Hours at a stop past free time (ELD arrival and departure against the appointment) on loads with no detention line on the invoice, times your rate.
On-time delivery	Deliveries where the truck arrived by the appointment time ÷ all deliveries.

Most of these need two or three systems at once. Cost per mile needs the fuel card, the ELD and the settlements; unbilled detention needs the ELD and the TMS; profit per lease needs settlements, leases and the fuel card. That is the whole problem.

Option 1: the reports in your TMS and ELD

Free and already there. Each system reports well on its own data: the TMS on loads and revenue, the ELD on miles, idling and speeding, the fuel card on gallons and price. What none of them can do is cross: the ELD knows the truck sat at the dock for four hours; it does not know the invoice went out without detention. The fuel card knows the fill was 300 gallons; it does not know the truck holds 200.

Option 2: a Power BI dashboard

Power BI is a strong tool, and plenty of fleets use it well. It can pull from your TMS database or API, ELD exports, fuel card files and spreadsheets, and draw anything you can define. What it takes:

Someone to build the data model: unit numbers that differ between systems, fuel lines with no truck on them, drivers who switch trucks mid-week, a truck that is a company truck until the 10th and leased out after.
Someone to keep it running: refreshes that fail, exports that change, a new fuel card account, a new terminal.
Definitions everyone agrees on: is cost per mile with or without fixed costs? With or without owner operators?
Someone to look at it. A dashboard shows what happened. It does not tell you on Monday morning that 135 loads last week waited past free time and were never billed.

If you have that person, Power BI can be the right answer. If you don’t, the dashboard tends to drift until nobody trusts it.

Option 3: connect the systems directly

Nerivo IQ connects straight to the systems a fleet already runs (your TMS, Motive, Samsara or Geotab, fuel cards like Comdata, EFS and WEX, toll accounts, shop software and driver settlements) with read-only access. It ties every line to the right truck, driver and load, splits each truck’s days into company, leased-out and owner-operator, and runs checks every night:

Cost per mile by truck, against the fleet, with fixed costs from your own settings.
Profit per mile for every company truck, lease and owner operator.
Unbilled detention, fuel exceptions, missing leases, chargebacks short of what you paid, repeat repairs.
Reports you build by asking for them, with filters for company trucks, leases or owner operators, sent by email on your schedule.
Neri, an assistant you can ask in plain English, which answers from your data and draws the chart.

Already on Power BI? Keep it. Nerivo does the matching and the checks; any table exports to CSV, and we can talk about feeding your Power BI directly.

Side by side

	TMS / ELD reports	Power BI	Nerivo IQ
Data from several systems	No, one each	Yes, once you build it	Yes, connected in setup
Matches fuel, tolls, miles to truck, driver and load	No	If you build it	Yes
Company vs leased-out vs owner-operator days	No	If you build it	Yes
Finds money left on the table	No	No, it shows what you chart	Yes, nightly checks
Who keeps it running	The vendor	Your team	Nerivo
Ask a question in plain English	No	Limited	Yes, Neri

Frequently asked questions

What is fleet analytics?

Fleet analytics is turning the records a trucking company already has (loads and invoices from the TMS, miles and stops from the ELD, fuel card and toll transactions, shop invoices, driver settlements) into answers: what each truck costs per mile, which trucks, leases, drivers, customers and lanes make or lose money, and where money is being left on the table.

What KPIs should a trucking dashboard show?

Cost per mile for company trucks, revenue per loaded mile, deadhead percentage, operating ratio, profit per mile by truck and by part of the fleet (company trucks, leased-out trucks, owner operators), MPG against the fleet, unbilled detention, and on-time delivery. Each one needs a clear definition, or two reports will show two different numbers.

Can Power BI connect to my TMS?

Usually, yes, if the TMS gives you database access, an API or scheduled exports. The connection is the easy part. The work is shaping the data: matching fuel card lines to trucks, tying miles to loads, handling drivers who change trucks and trucks that are leased out part of a month, and keeping it all running when a system changes its export.

Do I need a data team to use Power BI for my fleet?

Not to build a first dashboard. To keep one accurate across four or five systems, someone has to own it: refresh failures, new unit numbers, new fuel card accounts, changed exports. Fleets without that person tend to end up with a dashboard nobody trusts.

Can I keep using Power BI with Nerivo?

Yes. Nerivo connects to your TMS, ELD, fuel cards, tolls and shop software and does the matching and the checks. Any table in Nerivo exports to CSV, and if your team lives in Power BI, ask us about feeding it directly.

How long does it take to set up?

Nerivo connects your systems as part of setup, within 10 days for the ELD, fuel cards and TMS most fleets run, with read-only access you create in each system.

Nerivo IQ

Fleet analytics without building the data model.

Connect your TMS, ELD and fuel cards once. Nerivo matches every line to the right truck, driver and load, and shows cost and profit per truck, per lease and per owner operator, with the money left on the table found every night. For fleets of 50+ trucks.

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