Webfleet used the IAA show to promote the integration of AI technology into its fleet management systems.
Raghunath Banerjee, vice president for data solutions at Webfleet’s parent company Bridgestone, said the new AI Assistant tool enabled fleet managers to quickly access information about their vehicles and driver behaviour without having to trawl through numerous data reports.
“Lots of fleet managers are understaffed [and] grappling with data, fuel cards and transport management,” said Banerjee.
“AI Assistant helps fleet managers optimise their time and make decisions based on their data.”
He said the AI tool delivered real-time and historical data about key fleet performance indicators, including fuel and energy consumption and driving events such as idling, speeding and harsh braking.
Fleet managers enter prompts asking, for example, ‘what is the fuel consumption trend over the last three months?’ and get precise overviews in seconds, explained Banerjee. The tool can also generate a list of fleet managers’ “most preferred (commonly asked) questions”, he added.
The system’s Fleet Data Analytics Dashboard consolidates information from sources such as tyres, in-vehicle cameras and telematics in one place.
“Fleet managers have too much data to deal with, they want a centralised system, [where] everything can be seen on one page.” said Banerjee.
Data security is a vital consideration and Banerjee stresses that customers cannot access specific data from competitors. Webfleet, however, can provide them with “insights of improvement areas” based on anonymous information.
