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Operators running a fleet of 50-plus vehicles could benefit from new resource management software that has already proved its worth by saving Leicestershire police £125,000 a year in fuel costs, among other benefits. Developed by L&A Consultants as a pilot project in 2006 for Leicestershire Constabulary, iR3 has now been used by the police force for almost two years, creating an annual saving of £4 for every £1 invested.

According to Adrian McMullan, managing partner at L&A, iR3  has also cut the constabulary's insurance premium for its vehicles by about £30,000 as "they can now provide detailed information on any incident or claim". L&A is now targeting its software at the road haulage sector.

"We've developed it to such a high level of sophistication for the police that it should be fairly straightforward for us to set up for a haulage operator," says McMullan. There are six areas iR3 can be used for: response management job management resource management fleet management duty-of-care management and vehicle tracking.

"We will tailor the application to an individual operator's requirements. They might only be interested in monitoring whether their fleets are being fully utilised, whereas another operator might want to add collision reporting and service forecasting," says McMullan. The main advantage of iR3 is that it has been developed using open-source software, which means it can be integrated into operators' existing IT systems.

"Our  software uses proven automated vehicle location system technology that integrates data from virtually any other application, such as scheduling, call handling, CRM, logistics, and sales and fleet management software, among others," says McMullan. L&A charges customers a monthly fee for the software, which includes detailed reports of all data.

"If operators want to initially trial iR3 that's fine with us, or they can start using it across their whole fleet straight away. It is really only cost-effective when run on a fleet of at least 50 vehicles," adds McMullan.