Fuel Management for Transport Businesses: What the Old Way of Fuelling Really Costs
Kushagra Bhargava
Ask a transporter what their biggest cost is, and the answer comes fast: fuel. Ask how much of it actually reached their trucks last month, and the answer is usually a guess.
In Episode 1 of The Fuelling Pod, Sanjay Barse, director of Chintu Transport, Pune, talked about how his fleet fuelled for years, what it was quietly costing him, and what changed when he moved to an organised system.
Why does fuel matter so much?
Fuel is 50 to 60% of a transporter's operating cost (CRISIL, May 2026)
Transport uses about 70% of the HSD sold in India (PPAC)
Fuel prices went up by about ₹7.5 to ₹8 a litre in just two weeks in May 2026
No transporter can control the price. But every transporter can control how much fuel actually goes where it should.
What did the old way of fuelling look like?
For most fleets, it still looks like this.
In the yard, fuel is kept in drums. Small vehicles can't each go to the pump, so someone brings back a few 50-litre cans every morning and pours fuel into each vehicle by hand. Some of it spills. Some is left in the cans. By evening, that leftover fuel is often gone.
On the highway, drivers fill up wherever they can, paying in cash. Nobody can say for sure how much went into which truck.
This is a large industry of small players. IISD and IRADe found that 80% of truck operators in India own fewer than five trucks.
Where does the fuel go missing?
The price per litre shows up on the bill. The losses don't.
Spillage: a few litres lost every time a can is poured
Leftovers: fuel left in cans that never reaches a tank
No records: no way to match fuel to a vehicle, a trip or a driver
Theft on the road: at some highway stops, a motor is put into the tank and hundreds of litres are pulled out in minutes
False alerts from telematics: platforms like Fleet Edge use sensors inside the fuel tank. On Indian roads, fuel sloshes every time a truck hits a pothole, and the sensor can read that as theft. A transporter who trusts the alert ends up blaming an honest driver
That last point hurts more than it looks. Drivers are already hard to find. Accuse the wrong one, and he simply hands back the keys and leaves.
Tracking itself is now everywhere. Since 2018, MoRTH has required AIS-140 GPS tracking devices on commercial vehicles. But knowing where a truck is does not tell you where its fuel went.
This is why we say:
Total Cost of Fuelling = Price x Litres + Hidden Losses
What changed with Repos DATUM?
Sanjay Barse was among the first 10 to 12 businesses to install Repos DATUM. DATUM is an IoT-enabled, plug-and-play 3-in-1 fuelling solution that does three simple thing
Store: fuel is kept safely on site
Dispense: fuel goes straight into the vehicle, no cans
Authorise: every fill is approved and recorded
The biggest change for him was control. His team places a request, and he decides how much fuel goes into which vehicle.
The old way | With Repos DATUM | |
Availability | Daily trips to the pump with cans | Fuel on site |
Record | None at vehicle level | Every fill recorded |
Control | With whoever held the can | With the owner, who approves every fill |
Losses | Spillage, leftovers, untraced litres | Completely eliminated |
Driver relationship | Suspicion, no proof | Data, not blame |
Did it pay for itself?
Let's take a simple, middle-of-the-road case.
Save 10 litres of fuel a day
For at least 25 days a month
At about ₹100 a litre
That is ₹25,000 saved every month. Not once. Every single month.
Now look at the investment. DATUM cost him ₹6 lakh, of which about ₹1 lakh was GST. That puts his real cost close to ₹5 lakh.
Amount | |
Monthly saving | ₹25,000 |
Saving in a year | ₹3 lakh |
Time to recover ₹5 lakh | About 20 months |
Saving over four years | About ₹12 lakh |
He has been using DATUM for about four years. Even on this cautious estimate, it has paid for itself more than twice over. He has since ordered a second unit.
What does fuel control do for drivers?
Once fuel is under control, the conversation with drivers changes. Instead of guessing and suspecting, the owner has a record.
Some fleets go a step further. Each truck model is given a fixed mileage, fuel is given at fixed points on the route, and whatever the driver saves becomes his own income. Drivers then drive steadier, look after the truck and push for timely servicing. The owner fixes the system, not the person.
With only about 55 drivers for every 100 trucks, according to TeamLease, keeping good drivers matters as much as saving fuel. A system that rewards them does both.
What does organised fuelling look like?
You cannot control the price of fuel. You can control how you fuel.
At the national level, fuel makes up 42.1% of all road freight spending, according to DPIIT and NCAER. Even a small improvement in how it is bought and used changes the cost of moving goods.
Total Fuel Management is a single, end-to-end system that brings Procurement, Operations and Payments together. It gives businesses one connected system to manage fuel, with greater convenience and control at every step.
In simple terms, it covers two things:
Organised Buying: the right quality and quantity of fuel, delivered
Organised Using: safe storage, controlled filling and approval for every vehicle
Watch the full episode
Hear the director of Chintu Transport, one such company, talk about everything in the industry in The Fuelling Pod, Episode 1.
Frequently asked questions
How do transport fleets lose fuel? Through spillage, leftover fuel in cans, unrecorded filling, theft on the road and billing gaps.
Why do fuel theft alerts go wrong? Many telematics systems rely on sensors inside the tank. Rough roads make fuel slosh, and the sensor can read that as theft.
What is Total Cost of Fuelling? The full cost of fuel to a business: price multiplied by litres, plus hidden losses like theft, spillage and downtime.
What is Repos DATUM? An IoT-enabled, plug-and-play 3-in-1 fuelling solution that stores, dispenses and authorises fuel at a business site.
References
Transport share of HSD consumption (70%): PPAC and Nielsen, All India Study on Sectoral Demand of Diesel and Petrol, via India Environment Portal, 2014
Fuel at 50 to 60% of operating cost: CRISIL, via Angel One, May 2026
May 2026 price revisions: All India Radio News and Angel One
80% of operators own fewer than five trucks: IISD GSI and IRADe, The Impacts of India's Diesel Price Reforms on the Trucking Industry
AIS-140 tracking mandate (MoRTH GSR 979(E), 2018): via Fleetx
55 drivers per 100 trucks: TeamLease Services, India Sea Trade News, May 2026
Fuel at 42.1% of road freight spending: DPIIT and NCAER, via Outlook Business, 2025
Fleet experience, DATUM cost and the telematics false alert example: The Fuelling Pod, Episode 1, Sanjay Barse, Chintu Transport. Savings and payback are calculated on the 10 litres a day, 25 days a month assumption
