A number of vehicle manufacturers have developed telematics systems and embedded them in their vehicles. However, the role such packages occupy and the services they deliver is often somewhat different from the services provided by third-party suppliers such as Donlen.

These OE-installed packages are now being extended beyond the developed markets of North America and Europe.

Last July General Motors announced that OnStar services were now available on selected vehicles in Mexico, including the Chevrolet Cheyenne and the GMC Sierra pick-up. The package includes everything from the automatic summoning of emergency help if the driver is in a smash to diagnostic reports on the health of your car.

A Mexican call centre has been set up staffed with advisers who can provide OnStar users with advice and information including directions on how to get to your destination if you are having difficulties with your sat nav: or do not have access to a sat nav at all.

A highly profitable operation for GM, OnStar already has 500,000 subscribers in China alongside 5.7m in North America.

Since 1996 when the service began, it has helped to locate over 59,000 vehicles stolen in North America and its Stolen Vehicle Slowdown tool allows OnStar gradually and safely to reduce the speed of a car or truck remotely so that the thief can be apprehended by the police. An average of five to seven slowdowns take place every month.

GM has recently announced a deal with AT&T to provide 4G connectivity through OnStar from 2014 onwards. It will make it easy for a range of additional services to be offered, including entertainment streaming and – of rather greater interest to fleets – improved remote diagnostic links to dealers.

Not to be outdone, Ford announced in September that it was acquiring Ferndale, Michigan, USA-based software developer Livio, which produces products and software tools designed to enhance in-car connectivity. By doing so it aims further to develop SYNC, its factory-fitted communications and entertainment system.

By 2015 it intends to have over 14m vehicles on the road worldwide equipped with SYNC and a further 7m fitted with SYNC AppLink, which allows drivers to control mobile apps with their voice.

Some manufacturers offer tracking systems that can be used as a management tool by fleet customers along with onboard driver behaviour monitoring units but they are not always quite what the fleet is looking for. A recent report from analyst Frost & Sullivan points out that some operators are wary of adopting them because they do not want to be locked in to a particular make of vehicle, or because they run a multi-make fleet.

Installing a platform that is flexible and open could be one way of overcoming these objections. 'Yet even if manufacturers start to offer fleet management systems as standard there is always a difference between hardware being in place and the service being activated,' observes Sathyanarayana Kabirdas, a Frost & Sullivan analyst.

The report predicts nevertheless that such manufacturer-sourced systems will grow in popularity over the next few years.

One manufacturer that has made significant strides when it comes to offering a built-in telematics solution is Daimler with its FleetBoard subsidiary. With customers in South Africa, Brazil and the Middle East as well as Europe, it can offer everything from tracking, navigation and text communication between the driver and his or her home depot through to the monitoring of driver style with an eye to achieving some improvement.

Delivery drivers can record information on a job, trip or package-related basis and the data can then be sent to an inventory control system if required so that stock can be re-ordered. With its 7” screen, FleetBoard’s DispoPilot.guide can, for example, transfer delivery addresses to the navigation system.

Nor is FleetBoard aimed solely at heavy trucks. For the past two and a half years it has been available as an OE fitment on Mercedes-Benz’s Sprinter light commercial.

The rapidly increasing sophistication of smartphones and tablets may make embedding devices in a vehicle look increasingly old-fashioned, not to mention expensive, some industry executives believe.

'Companies are pushing for systems to be delivered at the lowest-possible cost and OEM producers of onboard units are not able to compete with smartphones in terms of price and the use of the latest technology,' contends Viktor Bielko, fleet business unit director at Slovakia’s Sygic, a provider of GPS navigation software.

FleetBoard points out, however, that its use of apps allows fleet managers to access current and historic data by using their iPhone or iPad and it is an approach that is being applauded by operators.

'My schedulers have mobile access to our vehicles and use the app several times a day,' says Hubertus Kobernuss, general manager of Uelzen, Germany, transport fleet Kobernuss. 'The technology works perfectly and I am very happy with it.'

The arrival of 4G alluded to earlier could make it far easier for managers in a control room to view real-time quality images sourced from onboard CCTV cameras of incidents as they unfold – an assault on a driver, say – and do something about them. That may involve contacting the police, and the recorded images could turn out to be valuable evidence in any subsequent court case.

Cameras can also deliver instant time-and-date-stamped proof that a particular item has been loaded onto a vehicle and off-loaded at its destination. While it is not quite true to say that the camera never lies, a picture can be worth a thousand emails.