Samsara Fleet Telematics: Year-to-Date Performance Review file:///C/...neDrive%20-%20City%20of%20Merced%20(CA)/Fleet%20Docs/Samsara/Expansion%20Proposal%20Docs/report%20(1).html[9/23/2026 10:47:34 AM] Executive Briefing
Samsara Fleet Telematics: Year-to-Date Performance
Review
Review period: October 2025 through August 2026 (10 complete months) · Organization City of Merced · Assets under management 116 (116 vehicles) · Departments covered Police, Refuse, Water Service, Parks/Trees, Sewer/Storm · Data basis Samsara measured telematics — not estimates · Generated 2026-09-21 15:40 America/Los_Angeles
HOS VIOLATIONS, 10 MONTHS
0 Perfect compliance record,
UNPRODUCTIVE IDLE, 10 MONTHS
67,258 h
48,861 gallons of fuel burned at zero output
IDLE FUEL COST
$249,924
Measured, attributable, and recoverable
DOCUMENTED SAVINGS OPPORTUNITY
$62,481/yr
Up to $99,970/yr with full enforcement
Executive summary
The City of Merced has now operated Samsara fleet telematics for 10 months across 116 assets — 116 vehicles — spanning Police patrol, Refuse, Water Service, Parks and Trees aerial units, and Sewer/Storm. This review covers the ten months from October 2025 through August 2026.
The strongest hard benefit is regulatory. The City recorded zero Hours-of-Service violations across all drivers for the entire ten-month period. A full year of clean, automated, audit-ready compliance records eliminates the fine exposure, insurance risk, and staff audit labor inherent to manual logbook systems.
The largest quantified opportunity is fuel. Over ten months the fleet logged 67,258 hours of unproductive idling — engine-on time with no work output — consuming 48,861 gallons of fuel at a measured cost of $249,924. Put in plain terms, the City spent roughly a quarter of a million dollars on fuel that moved no vehicle and performed no work.
That waste is not new; it predates Samsara. What the platform changed is that it is now measured continuously, attributed to specific vehicles and departments, and therefore recoverable. Enabling the platform's idle intervention features is projected to recover $62,481 to $99,970 annually in fuel alone.
One finding requires candor with Council: idling has held essentially flat across the ten months. Monthly idle hours ranged from roughly 5,300 to 6,700 with no sustained downward trend.
Samsara Fleet Telematics: One-Year Performance Review & Expansion Case file:///C/...neDrive%20-%20City%20of%20Merced%20(CA)/Fleet%20Docs/Samsara/Expansion%20Proposal%20Docs/report%20(1).html[9/23/2026 10:47:34 AM]
1. Ten months of value delivered
HOS VIOLATIONS, 10 MONTHS
0 ASSETS MONITORED
116
IDLE HOURS MEASURED
67,258
RECENT 30-DAY MILES AUTO-LOGGED
50,262
Benefits realized Performance Review
Sustained regulatory compliance: A zero-violation record maintained across ten consecutive months protects the City from FMCSA penalties, supports favorable insurance positioning, and removes staff hours previously consumed reconstructing and auditing driver logs. A one-quarter clean record is encouraging; a full-year clean record is defensible evidence of systemic control.
Automated recordkeeping at scale: Mileage, engine hours, and complete trip history for all 116 assets are captured continuously without staff data entry. In the most recent 30-day period alone the platform logged 50,262 miles and 4,724 driving hours automatically. This data feeds maintenance scheduling, fuel reconciliation, and asset lifecycle decisions from measured fact rather than estimate.
Operational visibility and public accountability: Real-time vehicle location has supported emergency dispatch coordination, service verification, resident complaint resolution, and asset recovery across Police, Refuse, and Water Service operations throughout the year.
Cost transparency and baseline establishment: The City can now attribute fuel waste to individual vehicles and departments, with a full year of history behind it. This is the necessary foundation of any credible, auditable costreduction program — and it now exists.
2. The ten-month idling record
The monthly record below shows remarkable consistency, which is itself the finding. Unproductive idling ran between 5,310 and 6,733 hours every month, with no sustained improvement across the year. January 2026 was the highest month at 6,733 hours; February 2026 the lowest complete month at 5,310 hours. This variation reflects seasonal operations rather than any behavioral change.
Sustained flat performance over ten months is strong evidence that visibility alone does not reduce idling. Drivers and supervisors do not change habits because data exists in a dashboard; they change when the vehicle alerts them in the cab and when policy is enforced. That is precisely the gap the recommended actions close.
Cost figures use the City's own measured blended fuel rate of $5.115 per gallon, derived from actual Samsara-recorded idle fuel cost rather than an assumed price.
In ten months Samsara has produced a perfect compliance record and precisely located $249,924 per year of recoverable fuel waste that was previously invisible. The platform has completed the difficult work of measurement.
Capturing the savings requires enabling features already included in the existing subscription — no new capital expenditure.
Samsara Fleet Telematics: One-Year Performance Review & Expansion Case file:///C/...neDrive%20-%20City%20of%20Merced%20(CA)/Fleet%20Docs/Samsara/Expansion%20Proposal%20Docs/report%20(1).html[9/23/2026 10:47:34 AM] Month ↕ Idle Hours ↕ Fuel (gal) ↕ Idle Fuel Cost ↕
Monthly unproductive idle hours — October 2025 through August 2026 Month-by-month idling record
Measured unproductive idle hours, fuel consumed, and cost at the City's measured blended rate of $5.115 per gallon.
September 2025 and September 2026 are partial months and are excluded from annual totals.
Month Idle Hours Fuel (gal) Idle Fuel Cost
Sep 2025 1,527 1,240 $6,344
Oct 2025 5,576 4,329 $22,143
Nov 2025 5,608 3,924 $20,073
Dec 2025 6,170 4,518 $23,109
Jan 2026 6,733 4,640 $23,735
Feb 2026 5,310 3,972 $20,315
Mar 2026 6,073 4,377 $22,386
Apr 2026 6,162 4,424 $22,628
May 2026 6,484 4,534 $23,189
Jun 2026 6,121 4,520 $23,118
Jul 2026 6,688 4,975 $25,449
Aug 2026 6,332 4,649 $23,780
Sep 2026 4,282 3,067 $15,687
Idling has not improved in ten months
Monthly idle hours held between 5,310 and 6,733 across the ten months with no sustained decline. Samsara is measuring the problem accurately and continuously. The intervention features that convert that measurement into dollar savings.
3. The quantified savings opportunity
Where the money is
Samsara Fleet Telematics: One-Year Performance Review & Expansion Case file:///C/...neDrive%20-%20City%20of%20Merced%20(CA)/Fleet%20Docs/Samsara/Expansion%20Proposal%20Docs/report%20(1).html[9/23/2026 10:47:34 AM] Vehicle ↕
Idle Hours
(30d) ↕
Fuel Wasted
(gal) ↕
Cost
(30d)
Annualized
Cost ↕
Savings @
25% ↕
Vehicle Idle Hours (30d) Cost (30d) Annualized Cost Savings @ 25% Unproductive idling is the single largest measured, recoverable cost in the City fleet: $249,924 annually. The waste is also highly concentrated, which makes it unusually addressable.
In the most recent 30-day period, seven Police patrol units each exceeded 200 hours of unproductive idling — six to ten hours per day, every day. Refuse and aerial equipment idle for fewer hours but burn fuel far faster per hour: unit E-1591 cost $501.83 on only 48 hours of idling. Targeting roughly a dozen vehicles addresses the majority of recoverable waste.
Industry-standard idle reduction programs — in-cab alerts paired with supervisor coaching — typically achieve 25 to 40 percent reductions. Applied to the City's twelve-month measured baseline, that represents $62,481 to $99,970 recovered per year from fuel alone, with no capital outlay.
Annual idle fuel cost under three scenarios
Top 15 idling vehicles — measured cost and annualized savings Recent 30-day measured idle time and fuel cost per vehicle, annualized, with savings modeled at a 25% idle reduction.
P-1757 297 139.5 $591 $7,097 $1,774
P-1700 268 89.2 $377 $4,526 $1,131
P-1790 267 132.7 $560 $6,717 $1,679
P-1699 238 85.2 $360 $4,317 $1,079
P-1758 231 105.6 $449 $5,390 $1,348
P-1697 213 73.7 $311 $3,732 $933
P-1695 202 70.6 $296 $3,558 $890
P-1755 153 76.3 $324 $3,889 $972
P-1756 119 57.5 $249 $2,991 $748
P-1694 89 31.8 $136 $1,636 $409
P-1547 K-9 80 40.6 $172 $2,068 $517
P-1548 K-9 70 36.9 $157 $1,886 $472
Samsara Fleet Telematics: One-Year Performance Review & Expansion Case file:///C/...neDrive%20-%20City%20of%20Merced%20(CA)/Fleet%20Docs/Samsara/Expansion%20Proposal%20Docs/report%20(1).html[9/23/2026 10:47:34 AM] Recommended ask for City Council
Approve (1) enabling idle alerts and idle shutdown policy on currently monitored vehicles — zero additional cost, $62,481 to $99,970 projected annual fuel recovery; and (2) phased expansion of telematics to the remaining City fleet, with a twelve-month savings report brought back to Council for accountability against the $249,924 established baseline.
Data not
Annual totals cover the twelve complete months from October 2025 through August 2026. September 2025 and R-1558 ALTEC BUCKET TRUCK
TREES
R-1663 AERIAL
E-1591 NEWAY REFUSE REAR
LOADER
4. The case for fleet-wide expansion
Why expansion multiplies the return
The figures above derive from the vehicles currently generating idle data. Every unmonitored vehicle in the City fleet is idling, consuming fuel, accruing maintenance need, and operating without accountability — but none of it is measured, so none of it can be managed or recovered. A full year of data from the monitored portion of the fleet now gives the City a defensible basis for estimating what the unmonitored portion is costing.
Expansion delivers compounding value in four areas beyond fuel. Preventive maintenance scheduled on actual engine hours and mileage rather than calendar guesses reduces both premature service spend and unplanned breakdown costs.
Accident liability protection through video evidence has repeatedly resolved claims in municipalities' favor, and a single avoided claim can exceed an annual subscription. Administrative labor falls further as mileage, fuel, and compliance reporting become automatic. And utilization data identifies underused vehicles that can be reassigned or retired rather than replaced — typically the largest single capital avoidance available to a municipal fleet.
The marginal economics strongly favor expansion. The dashboard, reporting infrastructure, administrative training, and operational workflows are already in place and paid for, and City staff have now demonstrated a full year of competent operation. Additional vehicles plug into a system the City already runs well, so incremental cost is low while incremental benefit is proportional to the vehicles added.
Recommended next steps
1. Enable in-cab idling alerts on the seven Police patrol units exceeding 200 idle hours per month — highestconcentration, fastest-payback action, no capital cost.
2. Establish an idle shutdown policy for stationary periods over 10 minutes on Refuse and aerial equipment, where fuel burn per idle hour is highest.
3. Review K-9 units (P-1547, P-1548, P-1590) for legitimate animal-safety idling and formally exempt them so the policy is defensible and enforceable.
4. Resolve the unassigned-driving backlog to complete accountability records and eliminate remaining manual administrative work.
5. Adopt $249,924 as the official twelve-month idle cost baseline and report progress against it to Council quarterly.
6. Develop a phased expansion plan for unmonitored City vehicles, prioritizing high-fuel-consumption and highliability departments.
7. Return to Council in twelve months with measured savings against baseline — the data infrastructure to prove or disprove results already exists.
56 39.6 $231 $2,777 $694
54 36.2 $210 $2,525 $631
48 86.8 $502 $6,022 $1,505
Samsara Fleet Telematics: One-Year Performance Review & Expansion Case file:///C/...neDrive%20-%20City%20of%20Merced%20(CA)/Fleet%20Docs/Samsara/Expansion%20Proposal%20Docs/report%20(1).html[9/23/2026 10:47:34 AM] Source: Samsara measured fleet telematics — unproductive idling aggregates, HOS compliance records, and vehicle activity reports. City of Merced, org 6007524. Review period October 2025 through August 2026.
September 2026 are partial months, shown in the monthly table for completeness but excluded from annual figures.
Fuel figures are Samsara-measured for vehicles generating qualifying idle events; the fleet total is therefore a conservative floor, not a ceiling.
Annual cost uses the City's measured blended rate of $5.115 per gallon, derived from recorded idle fuel cost.
Actual future cost will vary with fuel prices, seasonal operations, and duty cycles.
Savings at 25% and 40% are modeled scenarios based on typical outcomes from idle reduction programs, not reductions the City has yet achieved. No realized idling savings have been recorded to date, consistent with intervention features not yet being enabled.
The organization's custom unproductive idling configuration could not be read, so standard thresholds were applied: 2-minute minimum event, PTO inactive, 24-hour maximum.
Maintenance, liability, and administrative savings from expansion are described qualitatively; the City has not yet recorded platform data sufficient to quantify them in dollars.