Top KPIs for Delivery Fleets to Track in 2026

In the competitive world of B2B delivery, operational excellence can be the difference between surviving on slim margins, and sustaining business growth over time. Whether you're managing a fleet of 10 vehicles or 1,000, it'sessential to track, understand, and act on your key performance indicators (KPIs).

For delivery fleet operators, the challenges are unique. Unlike passenger transportation or rental fleets, B2B delivery operations are balancing strict service levels, fluctuating volumes, and revenue. This encompasses everything from tight delivery windows, complex routing, customer satisfaction, cost pressures, regulatory compliance, as well as vehicle utilization and delivery experience.

This guide focuses on the 10 essential categories of KPIs that matter most for B2B delivery operations, with five dashboard suggestions to make better decisions and drive stronger performance.

10 Categories of KPIs

1. Core Fleet Utilization Metrics

Fleet utilization is the foundation of delivery fleet efficiency. These metrics tell you how effectively you're using your most expensive and essential asset, your vehicles.

Fleet Utilization Rate

Your fleet utilization rate measures the percentage of time vehicles are actively performing delivery tasks versus sitting idle. For delivery fleets, target utilization rates typically range from 70-85%. Higher isn't always better. Over 90% utilization may indicate you're operating at capacity with no buffer for growth or unexpected demand.

Formula: (Active delivery time / Total available time) × 100

Average Vehicle Usage

Track how many hours per day each vehicle is in productive use. This differs from utilization rate by focusing on absolute usage rather than percentages. For urban delivery fleets, 6-8 hours of productive usage per vehicle per day is typical, though this varies significantly by operation type. Beyond this, higher fleet usage has trade offs with higher maintenance costs.

Vehicle Capacity Utilization

Don't confuse time utilization with capacity utilization. Are your vehicles physically full when they're on the road? Track both weight capacity and volume capacity utilization. Many delivery operations find vehicles running at 60-70% capacity utilization, representing a significant opportunity for route consolidation.

2. Operational Efficiency Metrics

Job Count and Completion Metrics

Total jobs assigned versus completed gives you immediate visibility into operational performance. Track daily, weekly, and monthly job counts, along with completion rates. Industry benchmarks show high-performing delivery operations achieve 95%+ first-attempt delivery success rates.

Unassigned Delivery Jobs

This critical real-time metric shows capacity strain. A growing backlog of unassigned jobs indicates either insufficient fleet capacity, routing inefficiencies, or operational bottlenecks. Monitor this hourly during peak periods.

Serving Time (Time on Site)

How long do drivers spend at customer locations and at your depots? Excessive serving time eats into productive delivery time. Benchmark averages: 15-25 minutes for commercial deliveries and 20-45 minutes for depot loading/unloading.

3. Route Optimization Metrics

Deadhead Time and Distance

Deadhead refers to "empty" miles when vehicles are moving without cargo. For delivery fleets, this includes return trips to depot, repositioning between service zones, and driving to first pickup. Efficient operations minimize deadhead to 15-25% of total miles. Higher percentages suggest routing inefficiencies or poor fleet positioning.

Distance Traveled vs. Planned Routes

Compare actual kilometers driven against planned routes. Significant deviations (>10%) indicate either poor route planning, driver deviation from planned routes, real-time routing changes, or frequent failed deliveries requiring return trips.

4. Financial Performance Metrics

Cost per Distance

Calculate your all-in cost per kilometer or mile, including fuel, maintenance, insurance, depreciation, and driver costs. This comprehensive metric helps you understand true delivery costs and identify efficiency opportunities.

Revenue per Mile and Revenue per Asset

These profitability metrics show whether you're charging appropriately for your services. Revenue per mile should exceed cost per mile by your target margin. Revenue per asset (vehicle) shows overall asset productivity. Track both metrics by customer segment to identify your most and least profitable business.

Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)

TCO encompasses all vehicle costs over its lifetime: purchase price, financing, fuel, maintenance, insurance, registration, and depreciation. Understanding TCO per vehicle type helps optimize your fleet mix. Remember that 60-70% of TCO consists of fixed costs you pay even when vehicles sit idle, making utilization metrics even more critical.

5. Downtime Management Metrics

Downtime Percentage

Track what percentage of your fleet is unavailable due to maintenance, repairs, cleaning, or other non-operational reasons. Best-in-class delivery fleets maintain total downtime below 8-10%. Break this down by reason: scheduled maintenance, unscheduled repairs, cleaning, accident damage, and compliance holds.

Idle Time

Vehicles parked and available but not assigned to routes represent opportunity cost. Some idle time is necessary for fleet flexibility, but excessive idle time (>25% during business hours) suggests either overcapacity or dispatch inefficiencies.

6. Electric Vehicle Fleet Management Metrics

For fleets incorporating electric vehicles, additional KPIs become critical for ensuring operational readiness and maximizing the unique benefits of EVs.

Vehicles Plugged vs. Parked vs. Moving

This three-way breakdown shows your EV fleet status at any moment. Vehicles should be plugged in whenever parked for more than 30 minutes. Track the percentage of parked time that vehicles are actually charging. This should exceed 80% for optimal operations.

Charging Time and Charging Efficiency

Monitor total time vehicles spend charging versus time spent waiting for available chargers. Long wait times indicate charger capacity constraints. Also track charging efficiency: are vehicles charging during low-activity periods (overnight, mid-day lulls) or during peak operational hours?

Battery State of Charge Patterns

Track average battery levels when vehicles return to depot and when they begin routes. Vehicles consistently returning with <20% charge indicate range anxiety or insufficient charging infrastructure. Vehicles departing with <80% charge may face mid-route charging needs that disrupt schedules.

Interested in understanding how changing to an EV might impact your fleet operations? Check out our guides:

• How to plan an EV pilot program for success
• How EVs impact routes, shifts, and operations
• Route optimization for EVs

7. Environmental and Compliance Metrics

Fuel Consumption per Kilometer

Track liters per 100km (or MPG) by vehicle, route type, and driver. This metric directly impacts operational costs and emissions. Sudden changes in fuel efficiency often indicate maintenance needs, driver behavior issues, or route inefficiencies.

CO2 and Emissions Tracking

Increasingly, customers and regulations require emissions reporting. Calculate emissions based on fuel consumption and vehicle types. Track total emissions, emissions per delivery, and emissions per kilometer to identify reduction opportunities and meet sustainability targets.

8. Customer Experience Metrics

Client Net Promoter Score (NPS)

NPS measures customer satisfaction and loyalty by asking: 'How likely are you to recommend our delivery service?' Track overall NPS and segment by customer type, route, and driver. Delivery fleet NPS scores above 80 indicate strong performance; below 30 suggests serious customer experience issues.

On-Time Delivery Performance

Define 'on-time' precisely for your operation (e.g., within 30-minute delivery window) and track religiously. Break down by time of day, route, and driver. Elite B2B delivery operations achieve 95%+ on-time performance.

9. Driver Performance and Safety Metrics

Break Time Compliance

Monitor that drivers take required breaks for compliance and safety. Track total break time, break timing, and break location. Insufficient breaks lead to safety issues and regulatory violations; excessive breaks impact productivity.

Driver Behavior Statistics

Modern telematics systems track harsh braking events, rapid acceleration, speeding incidents, and aggressive cornering. These behaviors impact fuel consumption, vehicle wear, safety, and insurance costs.

Deliveries per Driver Hour

This productivity metric shows average stops per hour. Account for route density as urban routes naturally achieve higher stops per hour than rural routes. Use this to identify training opportunities and optimize route assignments to driver skills.

10. Maintenance and Asset Health Metrics

Vehicle Cleanliness Scores

Don't underestimate this customer-facing metric. Implement regular vehicle inspections with cleanliness scoring. Track cleaning frequency and costs. Establish triggers: automatic cleaning after X deliveries, Y days, or following specific delivery types such as food service or chemicals.

Telematics and Diagnostic Alerts

Modern vehicles report diagnostic trouble codes and maintenance needs proactively. Track alert frequency, response time to alerts, and correlation between ignored alerts and breakdowns.

5 Dashboards for Delivery Fleet Operators

Knowing what you need to know, and how often you need to know it is tough, especially when you're already so busy and stretched thin. Setting up dashboards can be one way to address this. Here are some suggested dashboards and how often you'll need to look at them for all the essential KPIs you need to be able to pull up at the drop of a hat.

1. Real-Time Operations Dashboard (Monitor Continuously)

Best for dispatchers and operations managers:

• Active vehicles vs. total fleet

• Assigned jobs vs. completed vs. unassigned

• Current vehicle locations and ETA to next stops

• On-time performance trending for today

• Active delays and alerts

• For EV fleets: vehicles by status (moving/parked/charging) and charge levels

2. Daily Performance Dashboard (Review Each Morning)

Start each day reviewing yesterday's performance:

• Total deliveries completed vs. planned

• Fleet utilization rate and average vehicle usage hours

• On-time delivery percentage

• Failed deliveries and reasons

• Total distance traveled and deadhead percentage

• Vehicle exceptions: maintenance needs, cleaning required, incidents

• Driver performance outliers (positive and negative)

3. Weekly Operations Review Dashboard (Review Monday Mornings)

Step back to see operational trends:

• Fleet utilization trends with peak/off-peak analysis

• Job count trends and capacity analysis

• Cost per delivery and cost per distance trends

• Customer NPS scores and feedback themes

• Driver performance rankings and improvement opportunities

• Route efficiency metrics: actual vs. planned distance, deadhead analysis

• Maintenance schedule compliance and upcoming service needs

4. Monthly Financial Dashboard (Review First Week of Each Month)

Focus on financial performance and strategic metrics:

• Total cost of ownership per vehicle

• Revenue per mile and revenue per asset

• Profitability by customer segment

• Fuel costs and consumption trends

• Maintenance costs by vehicle and fleet average

• Downtime costs and analysis

• Fleet capacity utilization and growth headroom

5. Quarterly Strategic Dashboard (Review for Planning)

Connect operational metrics to strategic goals:

• Quarter-over-quarter trends in all key metrics

• Fleet composition analysis and optimization opportunities

• Customer retention and NPS trends

• Total emissions and progress toward sustainability goals

• Vehicle lifecycle analysis: replacement needs and ROI

• Competitive benchmarking where data available

• Strategic capacity planning: growth capability vs. demand forecasts

Simple Steps to Get Started

Setting up dashboards, combining data sources, and making everything work isn't always easy, especially if you're doing this for the first time. Here are some tips to get you started:

Start with the Critical Few

Don't try to implement all KPIs at once. Start with these five critical metrics that drive the most value:

1. Fleet utilization rate

2. On-time delivery percentage

3. Cost per distance

4. Unassigned jobs

5. Downtime

Once these are tracked reliably, add additional metrics based on your specific operational challenges.

Benchmark and Set Targets

Numbers without context have limited value. Establish baseline performance, then set realistic improvement targets. Review industry benchmarks (from industry associations, consultants, or technology providers) to understand what 'good' looks like, but remember that operational contexts vary. Your rural delivery operation shouldn't benchmark against urban courier services.

Create Accountability

Assign ownership for each key metric to specific roles. Operations managers own utilization and on-time delivery. Maintenance managers own downtime and vehicle health metrics. If a metric isn't assigned to anyone, you'll quickly find no work gets done around it.

Advancing Your KPI Tracking with Alerts

Already got KPI dashboards? Take them to the next level by setting up automations and alerts to trigger action. Configure automatic alerts when metrics cross critical thresholds:

• Unassigned jobs exceed X number → Alert capacity manager

• Vehicle downtime reaches Y% → Trigger maintenance review

• On-time performance drops below Z% → Escalate to operations director

• EV charge level drops below 20% during route → Alert driver and dispatch

Common KPI Pitfalls to Avoid

Tracking Too Many Metrics

KPI dashboards with 50+ metrics overwhelm users and obscure what really matters. Focus on the vital few that drive decisions and business outcomes. You can always drill deeper into supporting metrics when investigating issues.

Use our list as inspiration, not a checklist. Pick what actually matters to your business and you can map back to a north star metric such as revenue or profit.

Ignoring Data Quality

Garbage in, garbage out. If drivers don't properly log job completion, telematics systems aren't calibrated, or data integrations break, your KPIs become misleading rather than helpful. Implement data quality checks and address accuracy issues immediately.

Here's our guide on understanding what makes data "good" or "bad" quality.

Optimizing Metrics Instead of Outcomes

Remember that KPIs are means, not ends. Pushing for 100% utilization may improve your metric but damage customer service and driver satisfaction. Minimizing cost per distance could lead to deferred maintenance and higher long-term costs. Always connect metric improvements to actual business outcomes.

All KPIs are connected, and the connection may not be super obvious at first. Keep an eye on metrics that change even if you're not focussing on them, they may be experiencing side effects from changes in other areas.

From Data to Decisions

The logistics industry faces unprecedented headwinds: driver shortages, rising fuel costs, increasing customer expectations, evolving regulations, and sustainability pressures.

The KPIs outlined in this guide give B2B delivery fleet operators the visibility needed to navigate these challenges successfully. But tracking metrics alone changes nothing. The value comes from using these insights to make better decisions:

• Identifying underperforming assets to retrain, redeploy, or retire

• Spotting route inefficiencies and optimizing daily operations

• Balancing capacity against demand to avoid over- or under-investment

• Demonstrating value to customers through transparent performance reporting

• Making data-driven decisions about fleet electrification and sustainability

• Proactively managing maintenance to minimize costly downtime

Modern fleet management technology makes it possible to track these metrics automatically, create customized dashboards, and even trigger automated workflows based on KPI thresholds. The investment in proper systems and processes typically delivers ROI within the first year through improved efficiency, reduced costs, and enhanced customer satisfaction.

Start with the critical metrics that address your biggest pain points, ensure data quality, create accountability, and build a culture of continuous improvement driven by real performance data. Your competition certainly is.

Ready to transform your delivery fleet operations with data-driven decision-making? Adiona can help you implement these KPIs, create customized dashboards, and automate workflows to drive continuous improvement.

Using Adiona to improve your KPIs in 2026

Adiona's FlexOps for route optimization; Fleet Simulator for modelling all kinds of scenarios including depots, shifts, multi modal vehicles, and fleet electrification; and EmissionSense for ESG metrics measurement and reporting are all key to improving your bottom line, winning new business, and driving efficiency throughout your operations.

Try Adiona for free for 14 days and start improving your routes and operations today.