How Will Telematics Change Fleet Management?

What do you know about telematics, and how well are you applying that knowledge?  Sure, you can record vehicle locations and distances travelled.  But are you exploring the true potential of technology to change your fleet management?

What are the Benefits of Telematics?

Formula One teams have been using telematics for years, helping them with strategy and tactics by analysing performance.  It is both strategically and tactically that telematics can make a valuable contribution to fleet management and, in so doing, revolutionise it.

From a strategic viewpoint, having accurate, fresh data to hand about routes and journey times can be enormously helpful in planning and reducing costs.

From a more close-up, tactical perspective, also knowing how individual vehicles are performing, and how they are being driven, can also assist with fleet management.

Telematics are helping to integrate GPS and on-board communications with other data which, when combined, can contribute to a complete picture of how a fleet is performing.

Increased Integration and Improved Performance

Joining the dots, in fleet management terms, can be a headache. But the technology of telematics now helps with the development of single data and control centres. This enables fleet managers to accurately monitor how individual depots operate and co-ordinate their efforts in line with the entire business.

The right analytics can also contribute to reductions in speeding, and therefore fines – through managing individual driver performance – and improve fuel economy.

Identifying faulty components and being seen to be able to demonstrate improved safety and maintenance procedures to insurers, with the object of reducing premiums, are also key management benefits arising from the adoption, and improved use, of telematics.

There are also wider business implications.  Improvements that fleets make to their own management will mean efficiency benefits for their customers, improving the overall capacity for business growth.

Change is coming to fleet management.  While, at present, it may not have reached smaller firms, within five to ten years, telematics will be properly integrated into fleet management practices.