Fleet Management Dashboard: 7 KPIs to track + Best Practices

Fleet management dashboards give teams a clear, real-time view of their vehicles, drivers, routes, and maintenance status. They replace scattered reports with a single source of truth. Industries that operate fleets, such as logistics, delivery, public transit, utilities, or construction, use these dashboards to track performance and respond to issues as they happen.

‍

In this article, we’ll cover:

• What a fleet dashboard does and how it works
• The KPIs and features that actually matter
• How to build your own using tools like Superblocks

Let’s discuss what a fleet management dashboard is and how it's different from a report.

What is a fleet management dashboard?

A fleet management dashboard is a centralized visual interface that shows real-time data about a company's vehicles, drivers, and routes. It also supports alerts and workflow management.

‍

The dashboard pulls this data from telematics, fuel cards, maintenance logs, and dispatch systems. It then transforms it into maps, charts, and actionable KPIs.

‍

Unlike static reports, a dashboard updates live. Reports tell you what happened. Dashboards show what’s happening and what needs your attention.

‍

Typical users of these dashboards include: 

• Fleet managers who monitor vehicles and plan maintenance.
• Dispatchers who track vehicle locations and assign jobs in real time.
• Operations leads who track performance, spot trends, and report to leadership.

What are the benefits of fleet dashboards? 

Real-time fleet dashboards offer immediacy and proactivity, which translates into several benefits:

• Faster decision-making: You see issues as they happen. Traffic delays, vehicle faults, and route changes show up instantly, so you can respond right away.
• Low operating costs: Dashboards surface the small inefficiencies that add up, such as idling, fuel waste, and overdue service. Fixing these early keeps your budget in check.
• Less downtime: Fleet dashboards pull in diagnostics and maintenance data before they turn into breakdowns.
• Better compliance and safer driving: Immediate visibility into unsafe driving allows managers to intervene or coach drivers while still on the road. In some systems, when a driver speeds or drives recklessly, the system provides instant feedback or alarms.
• Better customer service: You can give more accurate ETAs to customers, adapt to last-minute requests, and generally be more responsive thanks to live data.
• Higher accountability and transparency: Drivers and ops staff are more likely to follow policies when they know performance is being tracked.

Fleet management software features that power dashboards

Dashboards rely on real-time data from the systems around them. These features provide the context and visibility that make a dashboard worth using:

• Real-time vehicle tracking: Shows each vehicle’s location, speed, and route through GPS. Dispatchers use it to assign jobs, reroute on the fly, and keep trips on schedule.
• Maintenance reminders and logs: Pulls from telematics or shop systems to surface service history, upcoming maintenance, and overdue tasks. Helps teams stay ahead of breakdowns.
• Fuel card integration: Syncs fuel transactions with vehicle data to monitor fuel expenses, detect unusual spending, or potential misuse. Some tools also calculate fuel cost per trip.
• Predictive maintenance alerts: Tracks diagnostics like mileage, oil life, battery health, and tire pressure. Sensors catch early signs of wear, so issues can be fixed before they lead to downtime.
• Driver performance and safety monitoring: Records behaviors like harsh braking, speeding, and cornering. Feeds into driver scorecards and coaching tools to improve safety and fuel efficiency.
• Route optimization insights: Surface delays, detours, and execution gaps. Some platforms suggest better routes in real-time. Others let you review completed routes to spot where plans went off track.

Key KPIs to track in your fleet management dashboard

The right KPIs turn raw data into decisions. These are the ones every fleet should keep an eye on:

• Vehicle utilization measures how often each vehicle is actively in use.
• Fuel consumption tracks how much fuel each vehicle uses over time.
• Maintenance compliance shows how consistently vehicles get serviced on schedule.
• Driver performance covers metrics like speeding, harsh braking, and idling.
• Cost per mile or cost per vehicle calculates how much it costs to operate each vehicle or complete each trip.
• Downtime tracking logs time spent out of service due to repairs or inspections. 

7 best practices for using a fleet dashboard

These practices help you get the most value from your dashboard:

1. Keep KPIs actionable: Focus on metrics that trigger next steps. If you can’t act on it, don’t track it.
2. Automate alerts for critical thresholds: Set up notifications for speeding, low fuel, or overdue maintenance. You want to catch problems early instead of reacting late.
3. Refresh data in real time: Make sure the dashboard pulls in live or near-live data. Stale information creates delays.
4. Tailor views for each role: Different teams need different data. Give dispatchers, managers, and execs the views that matter most to them.
5. Review performance weekly: Use the dashboard to guide a short, focused ops review to stay aligned as a team.
6. Track trends, not just snapshots: Daily anomalies are helpful, but trends reveal what’s changing over time. Use history to spot slow declines or rising risks.
7. Limit noise, highlight signals: Too much data can cloud judgment. Use summaries, filters, and simple visuals to make key metrics stand out.

Tools and approaches for building a fleet dashboard

Implementing a fleet dashboard can be done through different approaches. Broadly, you have two options: buy one or build one.

‍

Let’s look at each option, its benefits, and tradeoffs:

Option 1: Use a commercial fleet management software

Many fleet platforms come with built-in dashboards. Tools like Samsara, Verizon Connect, Geotab, Fleetio, and Azuga offer packaged solutions that include hardware, software, and support.

‍

Going this route gives you speed and stability. You get a working dashboard right away, with support and updates included. The tradeoff is flexibility. Most commercial systems charge per vehicle and limit how much you can customize or connect outside data sources.

Option 2: Build a custom dashboard

If you need full control over features, data sources, or layout, you can build your own. This requires software engineering effort. You’ll need to write code, integrate APIs, and manage infrastructure. The investment in time and cost is higher for custom-builds, but so is the flexibility.

‍

A faster alternative is using app-building platforms like Superblocks. These tools let you build custom dashboards with pre-built components (tables, charts, maps), fleet management dashboard templates, and native connectors to databases and APIs. 

‍

Superblocks, in particular, also includes AI-assisted app generation, which helps scaffold your dashboard and speed up development significantly. You can build a tailored dashboard with minimal code and extend it further when needed, either visually or through code.

Building custom fleet dashboards with Superblocks

Superblocks is an enterprise app development platform for building internal software fast. It supports a multimodal approach to building, letting you move fluidly between AI-generated apps, visual editing, and full code. 

‍

You can start by describing what you want and have Clark AI scaffold it. Next, use the drag-and-drop editor to arrange tables, maps, charts, and filters. You can also change the logic or customize the UI further by editing the code.

‍

For fleet reporting, you could use Superblocks to connect to your telematics API or fleet management database. You can set up automated workflows to pull in the latest data, update dashboards, or send reports on a schedule.

‍

For example, you might schedule a job to run every morning that fetches yesterday’s fleet performance metrics for distance driven by each vehicle, fuel used, and incidents. The job then emails a summary report to your team.

‍

Key features you can add:

• Live vehicle maps using GPS feeds to monitor real-time locations
• Role-based views tailored for dispatchers, managers, and execs
• Dynamic charts that refresh automatically with new data
• Real-time alerts triggered by thresholds like low fuel, harsh braking, or missed maintenance
• Workflow buttons to assign jobs, flag vehicles, or update records directly from the dashboard

Essentially, Superblocks provides the building blocks for database integrations, API calls, charts, tables, and scheduling that you can assemble to automate your fleet reporting processes. 

‍

Examples of dashboards you can build with Superblocks:

• A dispatcher view showing live routes, vehicle status, and job assignments
• A maintenance dashboard tracking service logs, fault codes, and open tickets
• A driver compliance panel showing safety scorecards and incident history
• A daily downtime tracker with trends, reasons, and cost impact

Each dashboard is fully customizable, with real-time data and role-specific access. Every team sees what they need, when they need it.

Build custom fleet dashboards with Superblocks

If you’re tired of rigid dashboards that don’t quite fit your fleet operations, Superblocks lets you build one that does. Make it fully tailored, real-time, and easy to update.

‍

This flexibility comes from the wide range of features we offer:

• Multimodal app building (AI + visual + code): Start with AI to scaffold your dashboard, then refine it visually or extend it with full code. Switch between modes as needed all in the same flow.
• Integrations with systems you rely on: Provides 60+ native integrations for databases, AI tools, cloud storage, and SaaS apps.
• Scheduled jobs and alerting workflows: Automate daily reports, fuel usage summaries, or downtime alerts. Trigger notifications based on thresholds like harsh braking, overdue inspections, or route delays.
• Dynamic dashboards with role-based access: Give dispatchers, managers, and execs the views they need, each with tailored metrics, access controls, and user-specific permissions.
• On-prem deployment: Deploy the Superblocks agent in your VPC to keep sensitive data and logic inside your network. Still manage apps, users, and permissions through Superblocks Cloud.
• Audit logging and action history: Track changes, updates, and actions across your fleet dashboard to support compliance, accountability, and operational transparency.
• Data writeback support: Update records in your source systems (e.g., flag a vehicle for inspection) without leaving the dashboard.
• Observability and traceability: Send logs, metrics, and traces to Datadog, New Relic, or Splunk. Monitor everything from data pipelines to app performance with end-to-end visibility across dashboards, workflows, and jobs.
• Real-time streaming: Stream live telemetry from sources like Kafka, Kinesis, and Pub/Sub directly into your dashboard. Surface location updates, engine alerts, or safety events as they happen.
• Exportable code: Own your applications fully. Superblocks lets you export all your apps as standard React apps so you can host and maintain them independently.
• Automatic deployments: Integrates directly with CI/CD tools like GitHub Actions, CircleCI, and Jenkins, so you can deploy updates just like any other codebase.

If you’re ready to build your fully custom fleet dashboard, explore our Quickstart Guide.

Frequently asked questions

Can I create a fleet dashboard without coding?

Yes, you can create a fleet dashboard without writing code. Many fleet platforms offer built-in dashboards. You can also use no-code or low-code tools to build your own with drag-and-drop components.

‍

With Superblocks’ Clark AI, you can describe your dashboard in plain English and generate it automatically from the prompt.

What’s the best software for fleet dashboard reporting?

The best software for fleet dashboard reporting is Superblocks. It gives you a full development environment to build custom dashboards and reports that pull data from any source. If you prefer an out-of-the-box solution, Samsara, Geotab, and Fleetio offer built-in fleet dashboards.

How does a fleet dashboard integrate with telematics?

A fleet dashboard connects to your telematics provider via APIs. It pulls GPS, engine data, driver behavior, and maintenance alerts from your provider into the dashboard in real time.

What is the difference between fleet dashboards and fleet tracking?

The difference between fleet dashboards and fleet tracking is in the depth of insight. Fleet tracking shows vehicle locations in real time, while a dashboard includes analytics, KPIs, and reporting on cost, safety, and performance.

Can I automate fleet reporting using Superblocks?

Yes. You can schedule workflows to pull data, generate reports, and send alerts or emails automatically.