Telematics changes the game for driver and vehicle management

January 12, 2010

Recommended by 2 People

By Jennifer Smith
PHH Onboard Consultant, PHH Arval

In December, I worked with folks from two other companies, UPS Logstics Technologies and Geotab, to hold a webinar that focused on steps companies should take to achieve the highest productivity from their drivers and vehicles at the lowest cost. From a high level, the steps are simple:

Plan → Collect → Analyze → Implement  

(and then unfortunately, it’s back to planning again. . . )

PLAN:

Planning, or specifically route planning, is the sweet spot for Cyndi Brandt at UPS Logistics. The value that effective route management can bring to a company is tremendous – reduced mileage, reduced maintenance and fuel spend, overtime reduction and improved resource utilization. Cyndi also addresses the KPIs (key performance indicators) that companies and should be using to measure their routing effectiveness.

COLLECT:

I think that one of the commonly held beliefs is that telematics applications and routing applications are one-and-the-same and this is untrue. You can have a routing application and effective route plans without telematics. What you can’t do, however, is the second step in the process above, which is COLLECT the data – or really track whether the driver/vehicle followed the planned route and how long it took at each stop along the route.

Colin Sutherland from Geotab uses the catch phrase “measure twice and cut once”.  Geotab’s telematics application and hardware provides extraordinarily accurate and specific measurements using GPS technology and engine diagnostics. Just the volume of data alone can be daunting.

ANALYZE:

Merging telematics data with route, fuel, maintenance, and accident information can be a data miner’s dream, but a nightmare for anyone else. Distilling all of the available data into a usable and actionable set of information is where Karen Healey & I come in as PHH Onboard experts. Karen’s focus is on using data to help with green initiatives while I focus on KPIs related to fleet operating cost reduction and driver productivity enhancements. 

IMPLEMENT:

Implementation is specific to the outcomes of the previous three steps with a few overarching themes.

1. Keep it simple: don’t make any program so complicated and cumbersome that your managers neither understand or have the bandwidth to effectively put the program into play.
2. Implement in steps: consider this whole process to be iterative and narrow your focus to one or two areas in each iteration. For instance, you might want to focus on reducing risk in your first go-around, then move to fleet costs and then onto driver productivity.

If you would like to view the webinar, “Decisive Telematics Action Steps for Fleets in 2010," go here.

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