How connected vehicle data can transform entire business operations

Deep diving into the data generated by vehicles can give fleet decision makers valuable information about how to improve the cost efficiency and environmental impact of their vehicles.

While standard tracking data supplies an insight into driver behaviour and real-time vehicle location, more advanced datasets provide the tools to transform the operational efficiency of a fleet.

Avoid congestion

These datasets can reveal how vehicle trips split between congested urban roads and free-flowing highways, and expose the difference in journey times at different times fo day. Avoiding traffic jams boosts productivity and creates a lower stress driving environment.

When Ford tracked 160 light commercial vehicles for a year in London, it found that one of its test fleets could save up to 30 hours per week by setting out two hours earlier in the morning. Such a change in working practice may not be feasible for every business, but for companies that can be flexible the productivity gains could be substantial.

Mobility solutions

A parallel study followed a fleet of privately owned cars for 12 months, and by cross-referencing these journeys with public transport timetables identified that 20% of the trips would have been quicker by public transport. The patterns will change from driver to driver and city to city, but the data promises a valuable insight into how mobility solutions could provide a time-saving alternative to the company car for many business trips.

Boost efficiency

With many businesses expected to be forced into cost cutting measures following the COVID-19 crisis, aggregate data from their vehicles can identify overlapping journeys. Armed with this information, businesses can re-plan both sales and delivery territories to avoid duplicated trips, and potentially reduce the number of vehicles required to perform the same duties.

Carter Cordes, partner McKinsey & Co, said: “By matching the size of their fleets to real demand, companies can improve utilisation and reduce fleet size, often by 15 to 30 percent. They can also get better at the management of seasonal variations or spikes in demand. Optimising staffing levels means companies cut their overtime costs and can improve field-force productivity by 10 percent or more.”

Taking this a step further, businesses can cross-refer vehicle telematics data with information about each client visited to measure the true profitability of each call, service, delivery or collection.

“The best organisations are always looking for new opportunities to apply telematics in their operations, and some are even… building entirely new business models based on them,” said Cordes.

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