Case Study: Food Bank of Madrid

The Challenge: Connecting to the Community, Safely and Efficiently

The Food Bank of Madrid Foundation is a non-profit organization that receives and distributes food donations within Madrid’s community, and is dedicated to assisting people in need.

With a fleet of 12 different vehicles, the Food Bank of Madrid gave out 20,034 tonnes of food in 2016, having driven a total distance of 113,138 km.

One of their top goals is to ensure funds go directly to supporting programming. Running an efficient fleet and minimizing waste helps them achieve this objective.

Geotab’s open platform telematics technology can collect data from all the Food Bank of Madrid’s different vehicles, ranging from vans to Heavy-Duty trucks through the use of small, plug-&-play GPS vehicle tracking devices. “Without a doubt, Geotab’s technology has been of great aid in delivering food supplies, especially in running more efficient routes,” explains the Food Bank of Madrid.

Geotab is a company that is dedicated to its community, which is why they support numerous charitable programs and initiatives throughout Canada and the United States. One of these initiatives was the installation of Geotab’s GO device in the Toronto-based food bank Second Harvest. It was after the overwhelming success of this initiative that Geotab decided to apply the same strategy to the Food Bank of Madrid.To install our technology there, Geotab partnered with Servinstal; a security systems and fleet tracking service provider in Spain who specialize in the planning and execution of system installations.

The Solution: Telematics for the Optimization of Funding and Resources

Before aligning with Geotab, the Food Bank of Madrid, as a non-profit organization, did not have the necessary funding for fleet management technology and did not use any telematics system to monitor their vehicles.

“It is important for the Food Bank to be able to count on the latest technology in order to optimize our resources,” says Lorenzo Uriarte, Fleet Manager for the Food Bank of Madrid.

In one year, the Food Bank has been able to optimize its vehicle routes, reduce fuel consumption, idle time, and now has better insight regarding the security of their drivers.

Thanks to telematics technology, the Food Bank of Madrid has obtained the following results in one year:

  • Estimated 12% reduction in fuel usage as a result of the optimization of routes and reduction in idle time
  • Optimization of routes
  • 50% reduction in idle time and kilometers driven
  • Speed tracking to improve vehicle and driver safety

“Being able to see where the vehicles are in real time has allowed us to manage transportation in a more effective and efficient manner with improved routes,” explains Uriarte. On numerous occasions, they have used the Geotab solution to help drivers reach their destinations.

“What we appreciate the most about this software is that it provides us access to a multitude of data regarding the vehicle, including trajectories, incidences, and generally anything occurring within the vehicle,” says Uriarte. Idle time and fuel consumption have also been significantly reduced.

Apart from the optimization of routes and improved vehicle efficiency, this technology has increased vehicle and driver safety by monitoring excess speeding, accelerating, abrupt deceleration and sharp turns. As a result, zero incidents have been reported since the installation of Geotab’s technology.

In addition, telematics has contributed to greater control over the amount of traffic tickets received and better handling of the vehicles.

From the Fleet Manager:

“Geotab has allowed us to substantially
improve our fleet management. We now
have complete supervision of routes and
incidents, as well as an abundance of useful
data provided by the software.”

— Lorenzo Uriarte, Fleet Manager