Telematics provider Fleetmatics has launched a new system platform and at the same time launched three new products: Fleetmatics REVEAL, Fleetmatics REVEAL+ and Fleetmatics WORK. REVEAL is described as a business-intelligence-based fleet management solution for small and medium sized businesses. REVEAL+ is designed for larger enterprises and WORK is a field service management system. The company will provide free training and on-going support for customers, helping them to get the best out of the new systems.

‘Fleetmatics’ new platform helps businesses to be smarter about their mobile workforces and turn them into true engines for growth, cost savings and differentiating customer service,’ says Fleetmatics CEO Jim Travers. ‘As part of that equation, we’re providing customers intelligence about their business, such as how the fleet has performed operationally in the past and how their performance compares with similar businesses. This capability is powered by tens of billions of data points gathered through the system over the past several years. This incredibly rich data set has also helped us generate the new concepts and features in our products.’

Fleetmatics new systems are all made available as Software as a Service (SaaS) web-based technologies. REVEAL is a GPS tracking system and features include apps for iPhone and Android devices, enabling data to be analysed on a range of devices away from an office base. REVEAL+ is designed for large fleets and managing complex organizational structures and large user numbers. The system can be easily integrated into existing back-office systems.

WORK is designed for the management of customers, jobs, schedules invoices and field workers. The system integrates with REVEAL.

New features

The systems introduce new features. These include “Places”. Fleetmatics research shows that many customers either do not create “geofences” for places regularly visited by their vehicles or draw them incorrectly so vehicle data is missed. The new systems will automatically create and categorise geofences and also modify them, suggesting corrections based on where the customer’s vehicles actually go.

“Timeline View” presents an interactive display of vehicle activity, providing information in an easily consumed format. This enables customers to quickly highlight exceptions such as late starts, early finishes, long idling time, or long stops and analyse the data around the events.

The system is designed to be driver-centred, rather than centred on vehicles. This should help ensure that reporting is not interrupted by a driver changing vehicles. Money-based metrics are designed to ensure that data shown on the Fleetmatics dashboard translates vehicle performance into operational cost. Live alerts are designed to be easily set up to help users configure alerts on information that is relevant to them and see the problems that are affecting their business more easily. The system can present a wide range of data including idling vs fuel purchased. The whole fleet can be analysed, or by groups of drivers. Regularly used report summaries can be run without setting them up each time.

Around the world

Fleetmatics currently operates in the United States of America, Canada, Mexico, the UK, Ireland, the Netherlands and Australia. The company has 22,000 revenue-generating customers and 445,000 subscribers. According to Fleetmatics European sales director, Derek Bryan, a sizeable percentage of these subscribers are based in Europe. Most of the company’s sales are made on-line, with 60% of business in Q4 2013 and Q1 2014 sold in this way.

‘I’m continually amazed by the fact that even in a mature telematics market such as the UK, there’s still great scope for growth,’ says Derek Bryan. ‘We’re still winning very large contracts. Virgin Media was a very big win for us last year, with several thousand vehicles. People often talk about the market penetration of telematics and where it goes from here. It goes the same way as other technologies, whether that be broadband or mobile phones. It’s just a different way of acquiring customers and there isn’t as much green field out there, but we’re not fazed by that, we see that as an opportunity.

‘We’re winning more customers from our competitors than ever before,’ continues Bryan. ‘That does not necessarily mean our competitors are doing anything wrong. We’ve got some good competitors out there. The key thing is what we do differently. When you have a business and you’re pinned to your collar with fuel bills, overtime costs and you ask a company to come in and put in a technology to help you save money and improve efficiencies, you need their help beyond the implementation of the technology and that is key to what we do.’

Targeting the market

The company describes its target customers as van users, mostly local fleets within 100 miles of their base and not particularly knowledgeable about technology. Fleetmatics own research has shown that customers are concerned about the lack of visibility of their vehicles. European product marketing director Guy Fletcher says that the new software systems are the result of a two-year project. Over 1,000 customer suggestions are said to have been incorporated in the new products.

‘A very large percentage of our business is not in the haulage industry, it’s in light commercial vehicles,’ says Derek Bryan. ‘The type of technology and the way we have developed it has been taken up a lot more in the service industry. We measure harsh braking, hard cornering, harsh acceleration and we connect to the CAN Bus of the vehicle in the same way that we would for an HGV.

‘We’ve also developed a lot or really useful reporting around time card management and payroll. Businesses who are trying to do more with less have got multiple drivers for the same vehicle. Once the driver fobs into a vehicle, we can then follow him historically and follow him throughout the entire fleet. Everything from payroll, driving, fuel usage. In that way we can create a footprint for an individual as well as a vehicle.

‘We’ve seen companies who might have had 50 vehicles at the height of the boom. Now through re-structuring and trying to save money, they might have maybe 25 or 30 vehicles. But they will still have a higher number of drivers because the vehicles will be operating double shifts and two drivers to get the work done and that poses a problem. How do you follow that driver throughout the system?’