Analyses
1 oct 21

Connected Fleets Conference demonstrates the value of connectivity for fleet efficiency

For the fourth time, the Connected Fleets Conference proved to be a great learning and gathering experience for international fleet managers and suppliers. The partners of the conference, together with the industry experts, provided important tips for corporate fleet managers and detailed their future service offering. 

Why is video a game-changer and do we need data sharing more than ever?

Jonathan Bates, Executive Vice President Marketing at MiX Telematics underlines the value of video telematics. He says video telematics is critical as machine vision provides unparalleled visibility into driver behaviour and helps reduce accidents. Video telematics today can be supplied from one vendor, which so far helped to reduce collisions by 60%, improved constant driver training and decreased maintenance costs.

Alex Osaki from HERE Technologies believes corporate fleet managers need to go further than simply digitizing order management and make decisions about operational planning and set sustainability targets. Making the best use of the fleet and having a sustainable supply chain requires one question: How much more efficient would you be if you had perfect transparency in the fleet and you knew how to optimize it?

Does the fleet market require a strong move towards data sharing? Damian Penney from Lytx says fleet managers need to go from reactive to proactive to prevent accidents, machine learning has to come into play. Penney believes a global safety community must come to reality to share safety data and calls for collaboration. 

Don’t be delayed for electrification

Getting rid of non-digital communications and freeing up time is what telematics is for, says Filip Rousseau of UBench. The digital ecosystem architectured by UBench enables the use of data in specific operations and offers great benefits such as improved driver behaviour and reduced insurance costs. 

Is the black box the spark of the digital revolution? According to Vernon Bonser of OCTO Telematics, we are seeing technologies we couldn’t have dreamed of 20 years ago like crash detection, cloud services, camera and incident and parking management and EV range/charge points. Eventually, everything we didn’t have is now coming to reality. 

While data efficiency and digital tools are improving, Taco van der Leij of Webfleet Solutions focuses on one question, “Are we prepared to realize the full potential of EV?” Today, 61% of commercial vehicles can be replaced by EVs. If fleet managers don’t take action now, they will be left behind in the electrification process.

What is there to learn for fleet managers? 

During the fourth edition of the Connected Fleets Conference participants could benefit from two dedicated Connected Technology Learning Streams, and they provided vital data for fleet managers to utilize in different use cases. 

Christoph Ludewig of Geotab, Michiel Westdorp of Hoppenbrouwers Techniek and Willem Duijf of Moove Connected Mobility took note of the “Netflix model” that shall be adopted in gathering data. With just one click, OEMs and telematics suppliers can directly gather data from customers, which would enable interoperability between suppliers and data providers, and faster and more seamless solutions for the customer.

Ljubomir Jovanovic, Technical Operations Manager of Nelt explained that with better safety procedures and advanced fleet administrations fuel efficiency increased between 8%-12%. Jovanovic believes analysing data from the vehicles will be critical in boosting operational efficiency. 

Intelligent data, IoT automation and video telematics 

Wejo, with active live streaming of more than 11 million vehicles, turns data into intelligence for various use cases like finding a parking space to avoid bad weather. Benoit Joly from Wejo says the “fleet innovation marketplace” will go live next year is to fasten innovation and data processing.

What about IoT fleet automation? Kenneth Malmberg of Ridecell says there are 100 million telematics units in operation globally, and a car produces an average of 25GB of data every month. But today, the data and the connected technology are not always used efficiently, meaning that too often fleet management companies and fleet managers are confronted with operational tasks which could be avoided when maximing the potential of connected fleets via automation. In 10 years, this amount will increase 10 times. So, IoT automation can help by creating predefined jobs, from interpreting diagnostic trouble codes to maintenance. 

One last question is how to adapt AI cameras into the fleet. Richard Adams, Catherine Lewis and Brodie von Berg from MiX Telematics discussed this topic with Carl Hanson from Wincanton. Video is critical because it provides evidence for exoneration, repudiation while improving safety. Fleet managers shall focus on telling the need and importance of video to convince drivers and unions about the need for cameras and also create transparency.

You can deepdive into the benefits of connected technology for your fleet operations by reliving the Connected Fleets Conference from 30 September

Authored by: Mufit Yilmaz Gokmen