Idling is the easiest fleet cost to see and one of the hardest to report on. A vehicle standing with the engine running burns fuel, adds engine hours and moves nobody, and every telematics unit in the fleet is in a position to record it. Wialon does record it. What it does not do is put it in one obvious place, and the number it produces depends on settings most people never look at.
This is a walk through where idle time comes from in Wialon, where it shows up, why two reports can disagree about it, and how to turn it into something a fleet manager checks every week.
What Wialon counts as idling
Wialon’s definition is short: idling is the time the unit was standing with the engine on. Two inputs decide both halves of that sentence.
Engine on comes from the unit’s engine sensors, either an ignition sensor or an engine hours sensor, chosen on the General tab of the unit properties. If the ignition sensor is wired to the wrong input or never configured, there is no engine-on time and therefore no idling.
Standing comes from speed. A unit counts as moving when its speed is at or above the minimum moving speed in the trip detector, and as standing below it. That is why Wialon’s own documentation warns that idling cannot be detected if the equipment does not send speed in its messages.
Everything else about idle totals follows from those two settings.
Where idle time appears in Wialon
There are three places to look, and they answer different questions.
The Engine hours table. This is the closest Wialon has to an idling report. For each engine hours interval it shows the total, the time in motion and the time spent idling, along with average and maximum engine revs where the unit reports them. Run it per unit over a week and you have idle time per vehicle; run it over a group and you have the fleet view.
The Statistics table. A summary block that can include idling as a single total for the report period. Useful for a headline number, and of little help in finding where it came from.
The Idling criterion in eco driving. On the unit’s Eco driving tab you can add an Idling criterion with a minimum and maximum duration in seconds, penalty points and, if you want, a validator. From then on, every idle period longer than your threshold is a violation that counts against the driving score. This is the right tool when the question is behaviour (“who leaves the engine running at drop-offs?”), because it ignores the short stops that nobody can avoid. How that score is built is covered in Wialon eco-driving, from criteria to a usable score.
Why idle totals drift
Most arguments about idling reports come from four settings, and all of them are worth checking before a number reaches a meeting.
- Minimum moving speed set too high. Crawling through traffic, manoeuvring in a yard or creeping along a construction site below the threshold counts as standing. The engine is on, so the time goes into idling. Forum threads about inflated idle figures usually end with somebody lowering this value.
- GPS drift on a parked vehicle. The reverse problem. A stationary vehicle whose position jumps around can report a speed above the threshold, which moves real idle time into motion.
- An ignition sensor that does not match the engine. If ignition is read from an input that stays on after the engine stops, or from accessory power, the report counts engine-on time that never happened.
- Idle time that is actually work. A tipper raising its body, a crane truck on a job or a refrigerated van keeping its load cold all run the engine while standing still. Wialon handles this with an engine efficiency sensor tied to the equipment, so that productive running time can be separated from the rest. Without one, the busiest specialist vehicles look like the worst idlers.
A fleet total that mixes units with these settings configured differently is an average of different definitions. Compare idle time across vehicles only after the trip detector and engine sensors agree, or at least after you know which units differ.
Check coverage before you rank anyone
The quieter failure is a unit that reports nothing. A vehicle with no ignition sensor, a tracker that stopped sending speed, or a unit where nobody added the Idling criterion contributes zero idle time, and in a ranking a zero looks like the best-behaved vehicle in the fleet.
So before ranking, confirm which units actually send the data. FleetTAB’s Events view lists every unit against the detectors it reports, which is where a vehicle without sensors shows up as a gap and stops passing for a careful driver. The Assets table does the same for last known sensor values.
Turning idle time into a weekly number
A monthly PDF with an idling column gets filed. Three things make idle time something people act on.
Rank by vehicle. One list, worst first, over the same period for every unit. Idle time is rarely spread evenly: it tends to sit with a handful of vehicles, routes or drivers, and a ranking shows that in a glance where a table of totals does not.
Watch the trend. The same ranking week after week tells you whether a conversation with a driver changed anything, and catches the vehicle that started idling more after a route change or a new heater.
Put it in money with your own numbers. Idle hours multiplied by your vehicles’ fuel burn at idle and your fuel price gives a cost that finance will read. Use the burn rate for your own engines, from the manufacturer or from vehicles with a fuel sensor, since published averages vary widely between a van and a truck. If some units have fuel sensors, put fuel next to idle time on the same board so the link is visible.
Idle time is also part of the utilization picture. A vehicle with long engine hours and little distance may be working hard or may be standing with the engine on, and the utilization report next to an idle ranking tells the two apart.
Where FleetTAB fits
FleetTAB leaves the measurement in Wialon: the sensors, the trip detector and the eco-driving criteria stay where you configured them. What it adds is the view.
On the FleetTAB dashboard you build a card from the Eco-driving data source and limit it to the Idling violation type, then choose whether it counts idle events or adds up their duration. A Ranking card orders every unit by idle time; a Trend card shows it day by day; a Bars card groups it by week or month; a Compare card plots idle time against distance per unit; a Table card gives the exact figures. The period and unit selection apply to the whole board, and the board exports to PDF.
That card counts what the Idling criterion detects, so it needs the criterion configured on the units in Wialon, with the minimum duration you consider worth counting. If your trackers report idling through a sensor instead, a card on the Sensors data source with that sensor gives the same ranking by duration or by count.
The same Idling violations feed the driver and unit scores in FleetTAB eco-driving, where each one opens with its time and place on the map.
It is free on your own Wialon account, and connecting takes one API token.
Sources: Wialon’s documentation on the Engine hours table and on eco driving.
