A new study coming from Navteq says that U.S. drivers who use GPS devices with real-time traffic updates enabled can save themselves from spending four days in the car per year. On top of that, it cuts down on CO2 omissions by a whopping 21%. Sounds like a slam dunk for any business that has vehicles.Whether your enterprise has one or one thousand vehicles, helping drivers save time when on the road leads to dollars saved. Savings can come from reduced fuel expenditures, improved delivery times, reduced overtime, and better response times if your organizations has service level agreements with customers.

The Navteq study, which took place in Germany and has been extrapolated to include U.S. drivers, shows some not-so-surprising results. When drivers have access to real-time traffic data, it leads to less time in the car. (Duh!) In the U.S., it amounts to four days per year. That's 96 hours, or nearly 2.5 weeks, of work time.

I live in New Jersey, where traffic can come grinding to a halt at any time of the day for pretty much any reason you care to imagine. Thankfully, there is always more than one way to get from point A to point B. Knowing which highways and roads are clear and which aren't is key to getting from place to place with minimal trouble.

I use Google Maps from my desktop constantly to map out routes before I leave my home office. I always check the live traffic data. If I am not at home, I do the same thing from whatever mobile phone I happen to be using. I am especially sure to use my phones to check traffic every time I drive out of New York City, so I know which tunnel/bridge has the least traffic and which highways have lane closures due to construction. I have no doubts that this saves me time that would otherwise be spent cursing out the clogged roadways.

If your organization is looking for ways to reduce its carbon footprint, the study has more good news. Be reducing time spent sitting in traffic, it improves overall fuel efficiency. This leads to a reduction in CO2 omissions by 0.79 tons per year, or a reduction of 21% per driver. Not bad at all.

The bottom line here is that real-time traffic data is key. Whether you use Google Maps, or the data supplied by whatever GPS devices are inside your company's fleet of vehicles, be sure that your drivers have access to this information. You'll be glad you did.