Your drivers are costing you CHF 80,000 a year in overtime - here is how to stop it

Swiss transport and field service SMEs lose significant revenue to two invisible cost drivers: uncontrolled overtime and unoptimised routes.

Axians SA, a Swiss telecom and energy services company, reduced kilometres driven by 25%, recovered CHF 790,000 in annual costs, and increased productivity by 15% after consolidating 192 assets onto the Logifleet platform.

This article breaks down the three hidden cost leaks in transport fleets, explains how real-time data changes dispatch and billing, and covers what RPLP III compliance means for Swiss operators from 31 December 2025. 

In transport, the margins are already thin.

Fuel, labour, maintenance, compliance - the pressure is constant and visible. What is far less visible, and often more damaging over time, is what happens between the jobs: the overtime nobody signed off on, the kilometre driven that did not need to be driven, the truck returning empty on a route that could have carried a backload.

For most Swiss transport SMEs, these losses are not dramatic events. They are quiet, daily, and cumulative. By the end of the year, they add up to a number that most finance directors would find uncomfortable - and one that is almost entirely recoverable with the right operational data.

The frustrating part is that most companies already have the raw data to calculate it. They just have not isolated it yet.

The three cost leaks hiding in your fleet

Before diving into the numbers: uncontrolled overtime, empty runs, and inaccurate ETAs are not separate problems. They are three symptoms of the same root cause - a lack of real-time visibility into what your fleet is doing between jobs. Fix the visibility, and all three improve at once. 

Transport companies tend to manage what they can see: invoiced runs, confirmed deliveries, scheduled routes. The costs that pile up around those runs are much harder to isolate without live tracking data.

• Uncontrolled overtime - hours logged by drivers that are difficult to verify or dispute without accurate, time-stamped location records. When the only source of truth is a driver's paper timesheet, discrepancies are almost impossible to challenge.
• Empty and partial runs - trucks returning empty on routes where backloads exist but are not dispatched because no one can see vehicle availability in real time. Every empty kilometre is a kilometre you paid for and charged nothing for.
• Inaccurate ETAs - estimated arrival times based on guesswork rather than live position. When ETAs are consistently wrong, client trust erodes - and with it, the relationship that makes contract renewal possible.

Each of these is manageable with data. Without it, they compound month after month into a structural cost that shows up nowhere specific but everywhere in aggregate.

CHF 790,000 saved. 25% fewer kilometres. One platform.

 Axians SA is a Swiss telecom and energy services company managing a mixed fleet of 133 vans, 8 machines, and 51 tools. Before Logifleet, their assets were spread across disconnected systems, private and professional vehicle use was blended, and coordinators were making dispatch decisions without knowing where half the fleet was. After consolidating onto one platform, the numbers told a clear story.

source: https://www.neo-suite.de/en/company-profile/

Axians SA operates across French-speaking Switzerland, deploying field technicians and specialist equipment across dozens of concurrent projects. The operational challenge was not just route optimisation - it was the complete absence of a unified view. Different systems for different asset types meant that no single person in the business could answer a simple question: where is everything right now, and what is available?

With all 192 assets consolidated onto the Logifleet 360° platform, that question became answerable in seconds. The results over one year were significant.

-25% kilometres driven across 140 vehicles CHF 790,000 saved per year +15% productivity increase 192 assets visible on one platform

"An easy-to-use tool, accessible on all platforms - we strongly recommend it."

• Paolo Grossi, Axians SA

The kilometre reduction came from better dispatch decisions. Coordinators who could see every vehicle's live position were able to assign the nearest available technician to each job - rather than routing based on phone calls and yesterday's schedule. The separation of private and professional vehicle use became auditable, removing a persistent source of cost allocation errors. And with real-time visibility across the full mixed fleet, underutilised assets were redeployed rather than left idle.

The productivity gain - 15% across the field team - was a direct consequence of less time spent travelling inefficient routes and more time spent on billable work at client sites.

How the ROI calculation works - with your own numbers

You do not need new data to run this calculation. Most transport companies already have everything required: monthly overtime totals, kilometres driven per vehicle, fuel cost per kilometre, and a rough count of return trips that came back empty. The number those inputs produce is almost always larger than expected.

The Logifleet platform connects GPS tracking directly to dispatch and billing workflows. Route deviations appear in real time. Overtime is calculated automatically from actual GPS-confirmed hours, not reported estimates. ETAs are live, not guessed - which means clients receive updates they can rely on, and disputes over arrival times decrease.

Here is a simple self-assessment for any transport operator:

• Take your total overtime hours over the last three months. Multiply by your average hourly driver cost. That is your quarterly overtime exposure.
• Count the return runs that came back empty in the last month. Multiply by average route cost. That is your empty-run loss per month.
• Estimate how many ETAs were wrong by more than 30 minutes last month. Consider what that costs in client relationship terms - and whether any contracts were at risk.

For a Swiss transport SME with 10 to 50 vehicles, these three numbers typically combine into a monthly figure of CHF 8,000 to CHF 30,000. Against that, Logifleet's per-vehicle monthly cost is a straightforward investment decision.

LSVA/RPLP III compliance: the regulatory requirement that became an operational advantage

Swiss transport operators face a compliance deadline that has been in effect since 31 December 2025. LSVA/RPLP III - the third phase of Switzerland's distance-related heavy vehicle fee - requires that tachograph and route data be accurately recorded, retrievable on demand, and fully auditable. Companies still managing this data manually or across disconnected systems are carrying both an administrative burden and a regulatory risk they may not have fully quantified.

Logifleet integrates tachograph data into the same platform as GPS route tracking, fuel consumption, and overtime reporting. Compliance data is generated automatically, stored on Swiss-hosted infrastructure, and available for audit at any time - without a separate process or a manual reconciliation step.

The practical consequence is that the investment a company makes in LSVA/RPLP III compliance infrastructure is the same investment it makes in operational efficiency. There is no separate compliance project. The data that keeps you compliant is the same data that reduces your overtime and your empty runs.

What accurate data changes beyond the numbers

The value of real-time fleet visibility is not only in the costs it reduces. It changes how decisions are made at every level of the operation.

When dispatch coordinators can see every vehicle on a live map, they stop routing by habit and start routing by data. When field teams know that hours are recorded accurately and automatically, the dynamic around overtime shifts - not through confrontation, but because the numbers are simply correct and both sides know it. When clients receive GPS-confirmed ETAs rather than estimates, the nature of the commercial relationship changes. Disputes decrease. Satisfaction increases. The operational improvement becomes a commercial one.

For Swiss companies with ESG or CO2 reporting requirements, fewer kilometres driven also means lower emissions - reported automatically by the same system that manages routes and dispatch. It is not a secondary benefit. It is a compliance output that costs nothing extra to generate.

Axians SA is a Swiss business. The results they achieved are not the product of a large IT budget or a dedicated analytics team. They are the product of having accurate, unified data across a mixed fleet - and using it to make decisions that were previously impossible. Any Swiss transport or field service company with five or more vehicles is in a position to reach the same outcome.

Find out what your fleet data would show - request a free operational review.

Frequently asked questions

How much can a Swiss transport SME save by improving fleet visibility?
Results vary by fleet size and sector, but Axians SA - a Swiss telecom and energy services company - saved CHF 790,000 per year and reduced kilometres driven by 25% after consolidating 192 assets onto the Logifleet platform. For most SMEs with 10-50 vehicles, the monthly cost exposure from untracked overtime and empty runs typically ranges from CHF 8,000 to CHF 30,000.

What is causing empty runs in my transport fleet - and how do I reduce them? 
Empty runs are almost always a dispatch visibility problem. When coordinators cannot see vehicle positions in real time, they cannot efficiently assign backloads on return routes. GPS fleet management gives dispatchers a live view of all vehicles, making it possible to schedule return loads before a vehicle departs on its outbound run. Axians SA reduced total kilometres by 25% across 140 vehicles through this shift alone.

What does RPLP III compliance require from Swiss transport companies?
Since 31 December 2025, RPLP III requires Swiss heavy vehicle operators to accurately record, store, and make auditable all tachograph and route data. Logifleet integrates tachograph data directly into its fleet management platform - generating compliance data automatically alongside route tracking and overtime reporting, with no separate manual process required.

How does GPS fleet tracking improve billing accuracy in transport?
GPS tracking creates a time-stamped, location-verified record of every route - available the moment a job is completed. This eliminates the need to reconstruct route data from paper records at week's end, reducing billing errors and accelerating invoicing cycles. With Logifleet, billing data is available in real time, directly from the field.

Can fleet tracking data be used for CO2 reporting in Switzerland?
Yes. Logifleet automatically calculates CO2 output based on actual kilometres driven and vehicle type. As route optimisation reduces total kilometres, CO2 emissions fall proportionally - and the reporting is generated automatically by the same system used for dispatch and billing. This data is directly usable for ESG and CO2 compliance reporting.