Van manufacturers are increasingly stressing the value of the connectivity packages they can deliver.
If you choose what they have to offer then you can track your vehicles, monitor their health and keep tabs on the behaviour of your drivers, they argue. You can see if drivers are speeding and constantly braking and accelerating harshly.
No need therefore to opt for an independent third-party provider of connectivity services.
So where does this leave established telematics specialists such as Geotab, Webfleet, Trakm8 and Teletrac Navman? Are they in danger of being marginalised?
That’s highly unlikely, contends Teletrac Navman product manager, Barney Goffer. “The vast majority of fleet operators don’t rely on a single vehicle maker,” he points out. They run mixed fleets, so if you depend on manufacturer-backed telematics systems then there is the danger that you will be switching between three or four different ones as you try to manage your vans.”
The situation will be made worse because the approaches taken by different van makers are inconsistent, says Vernon Bonser, sales director at Queclink Wireless Solutions. “Engineers at different manufacturers may have differing views of what constitutes a harsh driving event, and the customer may have a different view again,” he comments.
Says Goffer: “One manufacturer may issue updates once a minute, while another may issue them every 10 minutes.”
According to Goffer, what Teletrac Navman can do, however, is pull together all this disparate data from various makes of van so that the fleet manager can view it on a single screen. Furthermore, he or she will be able to draw valid comparisons between one light commercial and another no matter which manufacturer has produced them. “We’ve got links with all the big manufacturers,” he says.
Expanding partnerships
Teletrac Navman is not alone in adopting this approach. All the other major telematics businesses are heading down the same road.
Earlier this year, Geotab announced that it was expanding its partnership with Stellantis offshoot Mobilisights. This means that telematics data from Citroen, Peugeot, Vauxhall and Fiat Professional light commercials can now be integrated into the MyGeotab platform, with no extra vehicular hardware required.
The same platform can also accommodate data from Ford, Volkswagen, Renault and Mercedes-Benz vehicles among others. Geotab won the What Van? 2024 Telematics Award, scooping the accolade for the second year in a row.
Says Bonser: “I think that what customers with mixed fleets want is a platform that will aggregate data and level the playing field.”
In some cases, however, this may involve installing completely independent onboard hardware and an independent telematics system, he suggests – no matter what the van makers may assert.
“You need to be able to opt out of what the van manufacturer is offering if you want to,” he says. “These days, however, you appear to be opting in by default.”
If a fleet has a large bank of telematics-derived data at its fingertips then it can analyse it using the tools a telematics specialist has available with the aim of cutting costs and improving operational efficiency.
Says Goffer: “We can set up a data insights dashboard which can for instance show you which of your vans is proving to be the most fuel efficient over a prolonged period of time. You can also see which of your routes could be efficiently served by electric vans.”
Comments Webfleet sales director, James Dewhurst: “You can see where your drivers stop during the day, and for how long.” Maybe those stops could be integrated into an electric van recharging schedule.
An intelligent telematics system can also tell you which vehicle is being charged and when and ensure that charging facilities are not being misused. “Maybe your van driver has bought himself an electric car,” Dewhurst muses.
Carbon calculation
An increasingly important piece of data is the amount of CO2 a fleet (and any subcontractors it uses) is emitting.
If you know how big your carbon footprint is, you can take steps to ensure it shrinks. Your clients may require you to report your CO2 output and will undoubtedly want to see it lowered.
“You can look at how regularly engines have been left to idle, and which engines have been allowed to idle the most,” Dewhurst says. Vehicle faults can be highlighted, and a workshop booking scheduled in order to avoid a roadside breakdown.
Then there is the question of fleet utilisation to consider. “You can see which of your vans get used the least,” he points out. If they are not earning their keep, then you may be able to save some money by getting rid of them.
AI can increasingly be used to enable managers with large fleets to identify which drivers indulge in the riskiest behaviour – driving at 40mph or more when the speed limit is 20mph, say.
“OptiDrive 360 is our safety dashboard, and you can ask it all sorts of safety-related questions,” Dewhurst says.
Something a business like Teletrac Navman can do (and a van maker probably couldn’t) is track much of the kit that light commercials carry or tow. “We can track a woodchipper, for instance, or a trailer with a mini-digger on it,” says Goffer.
Maybe a driver has forgotten to collect these valuable assets before driving away from a site – or maybe they’ve been stolen.
In vision
A growing number of light commercials are being equipped with dashboard-mounted cameras which can watch the road ahead. They can keep an eye on the driver as well to ensure that they are not smoking, using a handheld smartphone, eating a burger and fries, or falling asleep, all while at the wheel.
Their advocates argue that the use of AI can make such behaviour easier to identify promptly. The package installed can also include cameras which can watch the van’s load area doors in the interests of security.
Furthermore, it may be able to provide tracking data and tell fleet operators if drivers are speeding or accelerating and braking too harshly.
So are camera providers about to marginalise traditional telematics firms? That, too, is unlikely contends Webfleet. It already offers in-cab cameras anyway, as do its key competitors.
A light commercial operator with 440 vans which makes use of them alongside the other services that Webfleet has to offer is telecoms network installer Svella Connect – and they are proving to be of value.
“One of our drivers recently swerved dramatically on the motorway,” says Peter Jones, Svella Connect’s head of fleet optimisation. Bad driving? Far from it.
The driver was forced to take such drastic action because a car had gone out of control, shot across three lanes and there was the risk of a serious collision. “Instant access to the camera footage meant we could quickly exonerate our employee from any blame,” Jones says.
Says Goffer: “The great thing about video data is that you can contextualise the information.” Teletrac Navman can provide cameras as can Trakm8, another established business in the telematics sector.
Building repair, maintenance and construction business LCB Group recently replaced C430S telematics units from Trakm8 with RH600 4G telematics cameras from the same source in 253 vans. As well as offering live video streaming should an incident occur, tracking, and driver behaviour monitoring, they can watch over the vehicle’s health.
That includes checking tyre pressures and AdBlue levels. The cameras are being used in conjunction with Trakm8’s Insight platform.
Inseego can offer cameras as part of a portfolio which also encompasses tracking and fleet management software.
“They’re hugely popular at present,” says Inseego managing director, Steve Thomas. “They can tell you that harsh braking was a good thing because a child’s life was saved.”
Telematics data shorn of images cannot give managers the full picture.
“A camera can show that a pallet-load of goods delivered to a particular location was delivered intact,” he observes. “They can show who unloaded them too.”
They can also reveal whether or not cargo on the back of a dropside has been correctly secured.
Thieves do not always realise their capabilities, says Thomas.
“We had one incident recently where a thief tried to get rid of a camera,” he recalls. “And we got perfect footage of his face.”
Working together
Some camera companies are working in conjunction with prominent telematics businesses as well as offering their own telematics solutions. SureCam, for instance, has forged links with Geotab, says partnership director, Sam Footer, but also works with other platforms.
He believes that operators running less than 100 vans will be happy with a package which, while it might be viewed as basic by major-league multi-national fleets, still includes tracking, driver, vehicle and fuel usage monitoring, and cameras pointing at the driver and the road ahead.
Choosing a package with some additional cameras has distinct advantages says Footer.
“You can, for example, have one installed in the load area which is triggered when the rear doors are opened,” he says. As observed earlier, this can be beneficial so far as both security and proof of delivery are concerned.
Amid all of this there has to be greater clarity over who owns the data, and any images associated with it, warns Bonser.
“If it is a service provided by a van manufacturer then is it the manufacturer who owns it? Is it the leasing company if the van is leased? Is it the customer? And who has access to it?,” he wonders. Might the telematics provider have rights over it?
Failure to obtain clarification in advance could be an expensive error if there is an incident that leads to court proceedings. And lawyers do not come cheap.
