The five-year contract will see Microlise provide in-vehicle hardware and a web-based portal to Tata Motors, India’s largest commercial vehicles manufacturer, to help customers reduce operating costs and environmental impact by maximising the efficiency of their transportation.

The new deal will expand on the usage of the Tata Fleetman Telematics and Fleet Management services brand launched in India two years ago.

The new Tata FleetMan system will be based on the Microlise platform currently installed in over 150,000 vehicles around the world including by firms such as DHL, Tesco and Carrefour.

Future applications and services planned for introduction include an Emergency SOS panic button; a trip management tool to track and evaluate individual vehicle trips in real time against a standard in a multi-level, multi-user framework; a driving assessment solution to continuously evaluate drivers on a range of parameters impacting safety and economy and identify suitable consultancy and retraining; vehicle health management to provide remote monitoring of a vehicle’s health including quick fault detection and rectification – this will also generate information on maintenance and fault trends.

Ravi Pisharody, executive director of the commercial vehicles business unit at Tata Motors in New Delhi, said: ‘We as Tata Motors wish to lead the shift towards electronic control of drivelines and other vehicle systems. We also wish to harness the power and potential of such a digital approach by introducing advanced telematics and fleet management services. Tata FleetMan’s partnership with Microlise is a step in that direction. We firmly believe that this association has the potential to transform the way commercial vehicle fleets are managed in India.’