Encouraging fleet managers to spend money, so they could save it in other parts of the business, might sum up the original telematics proposition fairly well. While that is still effectively what telematics salesmen are asking fleet managers to do, the capabilities of the latest systems and what future systems will be able to do might be opening up the discussion a lot further.

Knowing where your vehicles are, how they are being driven and how long they have spent on a job, while potentially monitoring fuel consumption and purchasing, among other functions, are fairly useful tools in themselves. Developing technology has the potential to unlock other areas too. What are they? How will they affect fleets? What are customers asking for now? 

“The tougher the climate, the more focused people become on our industry,” says Giles Margerison, director of TomTom Business Solutions UK and Ireland. “We’re an easy decision not to make when things are going well.”

“Some businesses, when trading environments get tough, hunker down and won’t spend or invest until the storm clouds blow over,” says John Wisdom, european managing director of Ctrack (left), “Then there are those that look at the situation and think, ‘How are we going to be a bit smarter about managing our costs and becoming more efficient?’ and recognise that in times of adversity, if they spend wisely and in the right areas, then there are some substantial returns on investment to be realised.”

So where are those returns on investment being made now and into the future?

“One of the questions lots of people ask is how we’re going to interact with the insurance companies,” says Steve Blackburn, european vice president of Navman Wireless, “Companies like the idea of reducing their insurance premiums. The insurance companies are quite happy to reduce the insurance premium, provided they see a lower risk profile for the company. Companies are still very nervous about sharing information with an insurance company and in some ways you can absolutely understand the reason why if something does go wrong.”

Steve gives an example of a vehicle approaching a roundabout, the driver having selected the wrong gear and braking hard. “It’s obviously dangerous, something that needs to be addressed. It’s a real training issue. Would you really want your insurance company to know every time you did that?” asks Steve.

“On the other hand, the insurance company wants to make sure that they’ve got the tools to manage their risk. In other words, there’s no point in saying to the companies you can have a discount or retrospective discount, unless you give them the tools to manage this. Who’s the guy who is speeding through an urban speed limit? Who’s the guy who is driving erratically? 

“Some insurance companies are actually starting to get it. A company needs to have the tools, but they can’t have the access. But the insurance company needs to be sure that the company is actually using this information. 

“There is a way the technology can be manipulated to keep both parties happy. There has got to be a real willingness for the insurance companies to change the way they think about this. They have been experimenting with telematics for years. They know there is something there, they just didn’t quite know how to do it.” 

“Insurance is becoming a massive driver,” says Giles Margerison. “Every day, more and more people are talking to me about insurance-based telematics. It’s really changed from the vehicle security aspect. Now everyone is talking about the behaviour of people at the wheel and the people surrounding the people at the wheel in traffic. There are third party claims, ‘cash for crash’, and people are seeing significant discounts and reduction in risk profile by using telematics.

“Three years ago, nobody ever spoke to me about it. Now someone is mentioning it to me every day. I’m talking to brokers, to insurance companies, I’ve been asked to sit on panels of insurance industry experts. It’s the hot topic and it’s driving a new pattern of interest in our technology.

“Risk profile is a really big issue,” continues Giles, “If you look at what’s on the fleet ‘radar’, fuel and wages are on it and I think that up to this point, people have accepted risk as something they can’t change. Businesses are now starting to question that and asking what they can do to affect it and realising that they can alter it and there is technology out there that can help them do it. Insurance companies are definitely on board and they weren’t before.”

“We’ve seen a lot of interest with insurance companies,” says John Wisdom, “So for example a typical fleet operator might be very interested in this technology, but then we see that by sharing that data with insurance providers, there’s an opportunity to derive improved insurance terms for better driving practices. For some fleets, insurance can be a very substantial cost component. That’s an example where we’re seeing more lateral thinking with businesses and we’re touching different areas of the business by sharing data with more parties.

“With larger fleets we’re seeing a desire to integrate and compare data sets with other software applications, whether that’s integrating with fleet management packages or routing and scheduling software.”

An essential element for insurers is the driver monitoring capability. “There’s lots of interest in driver behaviour-based reporting,” says John Wisdom, “It’s recognised that if you manage driving style, you are potentially reducing wear and tear on the vehicle and reducing fuel costs. That type of thing is also very interesting and attractive to insurers.”

It’s not just a matter of remotely monitoring driving style, either, “There’s a lot of interest in fitting simple devices to the vehicle that also provide feedback to the driver,” says John, “So rather than having information just feeding into the back office, it’s also about sharing information with drivers and helping them to drive better.” Ctrack is also seeing a further development with drivers, particularly those working in sales teams, wanting to know how their driving compares with their colleagues’.

John sees telematics developing in two directions, which he describes as horizontally and vertically. “What are the key things that are of interest to most vehicle operators?” asks John. These ‘horizontal’ factors affect fleets regardless of size or type.

Then there are particular capabilities of the system, which might appeal to operators of particular types of vehicles, which he describes as vertical development. He gives the cash-in-transit sector as an example, “Security in that market is a key factor,” says John, “One of the developments we have made is a proposition that links in with security seals. You then start delivering information every time the seal is broken. So it’s not just about where that vehicle stops and starts. That vehicle went to that particular point and that particular seal was broken at a particular location.” A system that can deliver this information may be of interest to fleets operating similar vehicles.

Looking to the future, what other developments can we expect to see from telematics? “I think there’s a drive for more information around fuel monitoring and CO2 reporting,” says John Wisdom, “A lot of that is already in place, but it’s a matter of how that will get refined.

“There are a lot of controls already in place, for instance to immobilise vehicles, but is not used either for legislative or health and safety constraints. But I can see these being used in the future for speed control on certain roads, as governments look to control traffic speeds and routes and I’m pretty sure telemetry will be playing a part in that.”

“I think there will be an evolution of what we have now,” reckons Giles Margerison (right), “We will see more and more information coming out around the driver, their behaviour and their style. I think it will become more meaningful and easier to digest as time goes on. The same will be true of vehicle profiling.”

“I think we’re going to see lots of movement on things like network coverage,” says Steve Blackburn. “For certain industries, network coverage can be a real issue. Take water utility companies as an example. They will go to places with a lone worker that we don’t cover and for some of them it’s not about cost, but about health and safety. We have developed devices that will roam onto multiple networks and even in extreme cases where it will just switch to satellite communication.

“We will see much more intelligent devices in vehicles – devices that will not only be 3G, as opposed to GPRS, but will also offer Bluetooth connectivity. As the manufacturers bring more facilities into the vehicles and make more things available to us, not just through SMS firewalls for instance, but anything the manufacturer can make available to us, we should in theory be able to pick up and bring back. So the car will become a true computer on wheels. One of the things we have been trying to work from the manufacturers is fault codes and we’ve been looking at this globally. 

“The problem with fault codes could be something as simple as the ignition has been turned on and the windscreen wipers have not parked, which happens with some trucks. Alternatively it could be a case of stopping driving and getting the vehicle recovered.

“What we would really like to see is the ability to group these things so we can tell a customer, ‘You’ve got a fault code, I can’t tell you what it is, but it’s not critical, take it to your dealer on your next visit’. Alternatively, it could be, ‘This is a critical fault code. Stop driving the vehicle and get it recovered to you nearest dealership.’

“The manufacturers are obviously reticent about giving this information because if it’s in the public domain and one manufacturer can claim that they have 25% fewer fault codes than any of their competitors, it would not go down particularly well with them.

“I’ve seen some things in the US now where they are a little bit more open than in Europe and they have started to offer diagnosis, ‘You’ve got a problem with your air filter, this will increase your fuel consumption by X% and if you don’t take action in a set distance, the vehicle will stop working.”

“That’s the sort of information from the vehicle end, I would really like to see and obviously we would be picking it up wirelessly, or by Bluetooth. At the back end, it’s all about integration. You’ve got accounts packages etc and companies have different disciplines. What we need to do as software providers is to get better at working together, so any telematics solution just becomes part of the system.

“The operations manager may not want to know about vehicle faults but the transport manager will. He’s going to want that information at the touch of a button and presented in a palatable format. We’re all busy people. We haven’t got time to trawl through endless amounts of information.”