If you run a delivery or transportation company, you know managing an entire fleet of vehicles and a team of drivers is enough to cause heartburn and premature hair loss. Fleet managers have more than their fair share to worry about. However, telematics tools are able to do many of the things dispatchers wish they could do.
So, what is telematics, and how can it help boost your business? In this brief article, we’ll explain telematic technology and how this fleet management software can help take your company’s fleet operations to the next level.
What is telematics?
To best understand how telematics can help optimize your fleet operations, you must first understand what it is. Truly, telematics is a combination of different disciplines, including vehicle engineering, computer and data science, and telecommunications. Telematics systems collect vehicle data and monitor driver behavior and vehicle functions and report the data back to dispatch. Now, we’ll get into how the right fleet telematics solution can help boost business operations, customer service, and your bottom line.
A telematics system can help fleet operators monitor driver performance.
Employees work better when they know their superiors are watching them. However, dispatchers can’t be on the road with every driver at once, monitoring their performance and safety habits.
Telematics enables companies to monitor driver behavior and performance. Some telematics solutions offer video telematics that captures footage of the driver and dashcams that capture footage of the road.
Furthermore, telematics can monitor driver behavior such as harsh braking, acceleration, and even the average speed at which the driver turns a corner. These are the types of behaviors that affect insurance premiums and even vehicle health over long periods. So, as you can see, fleet tracking can help optimize driver safety and performance.
Telematics devices use predictive analytics to enable preventative maintenance.
All vehicles need periodic maintenance, but fleet vehicles require much more maintenance because of their constant use. Malfunctions cause downtime which eats at the bottom line. However, fleet telematics puts the power of predictive analytics at your fingertips.
Predictive analytics uses historical and real-time data to make predictions about future events. You can use this tool to make predictions about when a part will malfunction and replace the part before it’s able to sideline your vehicle.
When you’re in the transportation industry, you expect vehicle maintenance to be a significant part of your business operations costs. However, preventative maintenance can significantly cut maintenance costs as it’s much cheaper to keep a vehicle running than to fix a broken-down vehicle and get it back running.
Telematics can help improve customer service and driver productivity.
Of course, GPS is one of the most common fleet management solutions. However, commercial vehicles need greater driver location capabilities than typical GPS systems provide. The good news is that modern telematics systems use Google Analytics to find optimal routes and feed actionable data to fleet managers and business owners in real-time. Drivers have limited hours of service, and analytics helps them to make the most of that time, helping them find the most efficient route and optimize fuel usage. Indeed, analytics helps improve driver productivity and reliability, maximizes customer service, and even helps cut fuel costs.
Companies that use a fleet of vehicles to get their work done can use all the insights they can get to help optimize fleet operations. They invest a lot in their drivers and fleets, and it’s incumbent upon them to keep their most valuable assets safe and on the road.
Fleet telematics systems are telecommunications devices for fleet vehicles that deliver real-time data to fleet managers. There are telematics solutions for fleets of all sizes that can help optimize everything from fuel efficiency to driver productivity. Indeed, telematics systems are the ultimate fleet management solution.
