How to control machine hours and unproductive time
An idle machine costs money even when nobody notices. These steps help you measure how much it works, how much it travels and how much it waits, using GPS and without reading the engine.
Last reviewed: October 2026
1. Define what counts as work
Without an engine sensor, GPS can’t tell whether a still machine has its engine running. What it does know is whether the machine moves and where. So define work like this: moving inside the zone where the job happens. The working hours Fleetrak calculates are inferred from location.
2. Separate travel, work and waiting
Three numbers tell three stories. Travel is the time moving between zones. Work is the time moving inside the zone. Waiting is the time stopped. Mix them up and a machine that travels a lot looks very productive, and so does one that waits.
3. Mark where work happens with geofences
Draw the field, the site or the quarry as a geofence. That lets the system tell work from travel and warn you when a machine leaves its zone or enters one it shouldn’t.
4. Look at the stop that drags on
Fleetrak treats a vehicle as stopped once it has stayed almost still for a few minutes within a small radius. Review the long stops inside the work zone: they are usually waits for a truck, supplies or orders, not machine failures.
5. Compare by machine and by week
A single number says little. Compare each machine against itself week over week and against others of the same type. The trend matters more than one bad day, and it shows you where to look first.
6. Turn the data into a conversation
Idle hours are rarely one person’s fault. Talk to the operator with the data in front of you, ask what happened and fix the cause. Remember that location is personal data: operators must know it is recorded and have consented.
Fleetrak calculates work sessions and hours per machine from the route, compares them with work orders and lets you export the report as CSV or Excel. Try it free with one machine.
Try it with your own fleet
Create your company for free, with no card, and link your first phone in minutes.
Create my company