what is fleet management

A Beginner’s Guide to Fleet Management

Effective fleet management provides organizations with real-time visibility into their logistic operations and increases efficiency through vehicle routing and accurate reporting. Fleet maintenance management software paired with vehicle telematics can help support your day-to-day transportation needs while providing an overview of your business. Below is a beginner’s guide to fleet management.

What Is Fleet Management?

Fleet management has gained popularity over the past few years based on its reputation for guaranteeing efficient performance, optimum fleet maintenance and helping organizations run smoothly.

Fleet management refers to all actions allowing a fleet to run on time, efficiently, and within a given budget.

Similarly, it can be defined as the process by which fleet managers monitor the fleet’s activities by applying asset management, vehicle dispatch, and routing to make informed decisions.

Benefits of Fleet Management

You can maximize the efficiency of your fleet using fleet management software or by hiring reliable fleet managers.

Here are the major benefits of fleet management, and how they can improve your bottom line.

Ability to Manage Fleets Remotely

With all the various components that require coordination and organization, managing a fleet of any size can be difficult.

Luckily, fleet management software allows you to track all components remotely, thus simplifying coordination. Features such as vehicle tracking, and vehicle routing allow you to monitor the current location of your vehicles and find the easiest route.

Increase in Vehicle Lifespan

The GPS feature on vehicles allows easy monitoring of performance and identifies possible vehicle damage. It is easier to detect potential maintenance issues when you have access to logistics such as mileage and tire wear.

Being well informed allows you to carry out and perform timely maintenance, thus improving the lifespan of your vehicle.

Improved Safety

Fleet management software allows managers to trace the location of a vehicle and keep up with the driver’s behaviour. Most fleet management software has a video recording feature to help monitor driving behaviour while on the road.

This prevents dangerous behaviours such as drowsy or distracted driving, thus improving the vehicle’s safety and consignment.

Reduced Costs

Fleet management software comes with built-in tools such as GPS tracking to help with vehicle routing, which can help you determine the shortest route when making deliveries and eliminate costly lead times.

Fleet management software also provides accurate reports on your vehicles’ performance and total costs incurred during deliveries. These features all play an important role in cost reduction.

Central Data Management

It is a lot easier to organize and coordinate your fleet when all your data is centrally located. Fleet management software provides valuable data sets on demand, from a central (often cloud-based) location.

Improved Customer Service

Customers look forward to working with businesses whose feedback reflects accurate, reliable deliveries.

With fleet management software, you improve customer satisfaction by ensuring all the information you share with them is up to date. Additionally, the software will aid in tracking the current location of consignments.

Preventing Fraud

As a fleet manager, you have trust in your drivers. However, driver fraud does happen and requires even the most well-intentioned managers to stay vigilant.

Drivers who use their fuel card for reasons other than fueling company vehicles or falsely claiming card misplacement are both well-documented examples of driver fraud. Other examples include drivers using their own credentials to allow non-approved drivers to operate company vehicles.

An AI-powered fleet management system prevents fraud and helps promote transparency among your drivers.

Maintain Communication

Fleet management software equips your fleet with a built-in communication tool that allows you to make contact with your drivers directly.

As a result, drivers can communicate in real-time while on the road, without compromising safety or missing deliveries.

Vehicle Routing

Planning the day’s business in advance helps everything work seamlessly. A fleet management system can help you effectively assign vehicles, routes and drivers.

6 Tips For Effective Fleet Management

What are some of the fleet management steps can you incorporate into your operations, and where should you begin? Below, we offer some suggestions for managing your fleet more effectively.

1. Set Your Goals

If you want to be successful at managing your fleet, establish your business goals and monitor your progress from time to time.

Your goals should be specific, well defined and adequately aligned to the success of your business. Have a common objective to keep your team united and avoid the need for micromanagement.

2. Track Everything

Data is crucial in helping make sound business decisions. Having all necessary data on how your vehicles and drivers perform on a daily basis is essential.

Maintain a track record of how much fuel your vehicles consume, driver performance, and when deliveries are made. Keeping detailed records helps predict future outcomes and keeps your operations predictable.

3. Choose the Right Fleet Vehicles

Before purchasing or leasing any fleet vehicles, it is essential to assess your business needs. The vehicles you acquire should meet the size and scope of your operations, both in current and future states.

Purchasing too many vehicles up front could mean that several of them remain unused. Acquire too few, and your drivers – and trucks – could burn out.

4. Think About your Drivers

The credentials of your drivers ensure the safety of your fleet and consignment.

Having certified drivers with the right skillsets translates to better business performance, significantly reducing unnecessary costs and repairs.

5. Spend Wisely

As a fleet manager, you should consider all costs incurred through vehicles and equipment that are purchased, leased, or rented.

Spending your capital effectively depends on your knowledge base of strategies that help you meet return-on-investment goals. You should also consider available resources, flexible strategies, and any maintenance costs that change your business’s operational needs.

6. Invest in Fleet Management Software

Investing in technology-based systems such as fleet management software will help you utilize fleet intelligence, improve operational efficiency and properly manage your business.

Fleet management software continually improves the efficiency and productivity of your business by lowering costs and enhancing both customer and employee satisfaction, eventually leading to revenue growth and profitability.

What is Fleet Management Software?

Your fleet likely runs on data. Fleet management software acts as the “brain” behind your operations. The right fleet management solution will continually play a vital role in ensuring that fleet management activities are well coordinated and properly executed.

In addition, fleet management software records vehicle operations in real-time, allowing you to stay on top of maintenance and avoid potential breakdowns.

How Fleet Management Software Can Improve Fleet Safety

Fleet management is a data-driven process. It requires the involvement of multiple moving parts to function effectively.

It can help improve safety in several ways:

  • Real-time audio and visual feedback.
  • 24/7 access to safety-related analytics, which can prevent accidents.
  • Driver performance applications keep your drivers safe and accountable.
  • Accurately records footage before, during, and after a reported incident. Footage can help prevent future accidents, assign liability and potentially exonerate your drivers.

A successful fleet management program tracks, analyzes, and optimizes your fleet. For more information, contact a GoFleet representative, and see how our fleet management solutions can benefit your business.

image representing fuel saving

Telematics Can Help Your Fleet Reduce Fuel Costs

Benjamin Franklin famously said that “nothing is certain except death and taxes.” Given today’s fractured economic climate, one could easily add the skyrocketing cost of fuel to that list.

In the transportation industry, fleet managers are challenged to mitigate rising fuel costs without compromising other aspects of their business. Many companies have chosen to add electric vehicles to their fleet. While these vehicles definitely save on fuel costs, they can be cost prohibitive.

So how can one maintain fuel efficiency across their fleet without impacting their budget? Telematics might just hold the answer.

Using telematics to reduce fuel costs

Telematics combines telecommunications and informatics. Electronic logging devices (ELDs) automatically record hours-of-service (HOS) and driving time data.

Through the use of GPS and communication technologies, telematics provides fleet managers with data about vehicle location, vehicle use, kilometres driven, idle time, fuel economy, driver behaviour, and engine maintenance.

Within the transportation industry, telematics can track all aspects of the vehicle, from electrical, mechanical engineering to software engineering.

In the context of saving fuel costs, telematics controls and monitors vehicles on the move; it acts as a single monitor for all the different sensory and electrical features of your vehicles, including fuel efficiency, all the while providing data on-demand and in real-time.

Here are just a few of the ways that telematics can help you reduce fuel costs.

Improving driving habits

Everyone develops bad habits over time, and commercial drivers are no exception. Idling, aggressive driving and sudden acceleration can all add up to large fuel costs.

With telematics data, fleet managers can receive alerts in real-time, allowing them to coach the driver to prevent future incidents. Many of these telematics systems are paired with powerful software packages to help track vehicle activity and manage fuel consumption.

Telematics can also help you keep scorecards for your drivers, allowing them to challenge each other, and themselves, to improve their performance on the road.

Deterring fuel theft

Telematics solutions in your vehicles can be accessed remotely to help you keep track of fuel usage. Instant alerts let you know if there is any suspicious behaviour around fuel consumption.

Monitoring and maintaining diesel fuel levels

A poorly maintained diesel exhaust fuel (DEF) level can have an adverse effect on your vehicles’ mechanics, resulting in inefficient use of fuel, and an unfavourable impact on the environment.

Telematics ensures that DEF maintenance is optimal. These solutions send real-time data alerts when diesel exhaust levels are not on par with the emission regulation threshold.

Providing proactive maintenance schedule alerts

Regardless of the telematics solution you choose for your fleet, running full-time diagnostics should always be a priority, especially if fuel conservation is a pain point.

If the device senses that something isn’t running as it’s supposed to, it proactively sends an alert to the driver, while simultaneously alerting the repair centre.

Maintenance alerts slow down the gradual wear and tear on your vehicles and helps prevent future breakdowns, all of which help you save on fuel costs.

Optimizing existing routes and finding new ones

The data collected by GPS integration (common in most telematics systems) can be used to find better, safer routes, which can reduce not only the overall travel time, but the amount of fuel it takes to reach your destination.

GPS can also provide real-time traffic or route status; in the event of heavy traffic, this feature can help you find an alternative route and avoid idling.

General tips on reducing fuel costs

The alerts provided by telematics give you a holistic overview of your fleet. Most of these alerts have a direct impact on fuel consumption and acting on them can create big savings with minimal effort.

Here are a few of the diagnostics that telematics can track and alert you to in order to save fuel:

  • Keeping tires properly inflated. You can increase your gas mileage by up to 3% by keeping tires inflated to the correct pressure.
  • Reducing the use of air conditioners and heaters, or keeping them at optimal levels.
  • Staying on top of alignments and other scheduled maintenance work. Regular maintenance not only improves fuel efficiency, it also minimizes the risk of accidents.
  • Telematics can identify if the vehicle’s payload is too heavy, which can cause damage to your fleet and exponential gas consumption.
  • You can improve gas mileage by using the vehicle’s recommended grade of motor oil. Motor oil that says “Energy Conserving” on the packaging can also support your fuel-saving efforts with friction-reducing additives.

Conclusion

Whether you choose a telematics solution that gives you real-time feedback on fuel consumption or provides data to help you make informed decisions about maintenance and vehicle replacement, the fact remains that telematics can improve the status of your vehicles while having a positive impact on your bottom line.

Contact us at GoFleet and ask us how our telematics solutions can help reduce your fuel costs!

 

image representing telematics

The benefits of telematics during the labour shortage

When it comes to transportation of goods and services, truck drivers are the adhesive that holds the supply chain together. Given their importance, finding, hiring, and retaining truck drivers has proven to be more difficult than ever.

Once thought of solely as a system for improving operational efficiency, there is now opportunity to leverage telematics for driver retention.

By the end of this article, you will gain insight into the present trucking industry, and how the use of telematics can make a big difference with the current labour shortage.

What is ‘telematics’?

In broad terms, telematics is a field that combines telecommunications and informatics. Informatics involves the working of computer systems – the science involved in the processing of information, its storage, and retrieval.

When you apply this combination to vehicles, telematics becomes a highly sophisticated computing system that can track all aspects of the vehicle, from electrical, mechanical engineering to software engineering.

The use of telematics in the context of vehicle use often involves the following:

  • Using telecommunications to send, receive and store information to help control remote objects.
  • The combined use of telecommunications, and informatics to control and monitor vehicles that are on the move.
  • The use of GPS to help with the navigation and live tracking of vehicles.

Telematics acts as a single monitor for all the different sensory and electrical features of your vehicle, all the while providing instant information on a single vehicle, or an entire fleet, on demand and in real-time.

The trucking industry’s labour shortage

According to a recent report from the American Trucking Association (ATA), the shortage in truck drivers hit an all-time high of over 80,000 drivers in 2021.

The most prevalent causes were:

  • Demographics – The average age of current drivers is above 50, leading to more retirees and fewer hires year over year.
  • Fewer female drivers – According to the same ATA report, women only make up 7% of the overall existing drivers.
  • Lack of new drivers – The availability of potential drivers on par with a truck carrier’s hiring standard is extremely low.
  • Lifestyle –The lifestyle of the average truck driver is another important factor that deters people from choosing truck driving as a profession. Long hours, irregular meals and sleeping patterns all contribute to the decline.
  • The pandemic – Among the many people that were temporarily laid off due to COVID, most did not come back.

This labour shortage will be acutely felt for a long time and may persist until the trucking industry increases its bandwidth to allow younger drivers into the fold and/or improves its hiring and training practices.

Mitigating the labour shortage

There are two parts to managing the labour shortage. The first and most self-evident is to make the driving profession more lucrative and attractive to potential drivers, including:

  • Offering fair wages with extra benefits, including solid health insurance and pension plans.
  • An increase in freight rates.
  • A refresh in the truck industry’s branding, making it an appealing and viable career path.
  • Better work schedules and route assignment for improved work/life balance.

The second solution would be the adoption of technology. Telematics has massive potential to help your workforce mitigate the labour shortage while providing attractive solutions that make everyone’s job easier in the short and long-term.

How telematics can help

Telematics has the power to improve the working conditions of your existing and future drivers in a very significant way.

The benefits of telematics from a business perspective

  • Improves productivity and efficiency: The data collected by integrated GPS found in most telematics systems can be used to optimize routes, which reduces the overall time spent on the road, reduces delivery times, and improves fuel usage.
  • Reduces operation costs: All the improvements listed in the previous statement help reduce operational costs. Moreover, since telematics tracks and keeps records of virtually everything that has to do with the vehicle, there are opportunities to identify potential issues within your vehicles before they happen, thus improving operational costs and maximizing fleet efficiency.
  • Automates payroll management: With the time and distance data provided by telematics, it becomes easier to manage payroll without having to worry about clerical errors.
  • Streamlines telecommunications: Telematics systems help you seamlessly streamline all forms of end-to-end communication within your business operations, from customers to drivers.
  • Offers proactive maintenance and repair alerts: The diagnostics data provided by telematics can help you maintain your fleet and keep everything in working order. Issues can be flagged to your driver while also alerting your repair centre, preventing break downs before they happen.
  • Attracts and retains drivers: This is the most important benefit given the subject of this article. Vehicles fitted with telematics technology will always prove to be more attractive, and the many features that the tech offers, especially in them being engaged, and not disconnected over miles of long lonely road, will certainly help in their retention.

The benefits of telematics from a driver’s perspective

  • Improves safety and compliance: The built-in driver monitoring software encourages drivers to comply with all regulatory driving standards. This goes a long way in avoiding, and preventing accidents, ensuring the overall health, and safety of the drivers.
  • Opportunities for real-time coaching: Virtually everyone develops bad driving habits over time. Whether it’s harsh braking, frequent acceleration or failing to use a turn signal, telematics can identify these occurrences and alert both you and your driver to these behaviours as soon as they happen, giving you an opportunity to correct and coach in real-time.
  • Increases job safety: Contrary to popular belief, telematics isn’t the digital, overbearing “Big Brother” that everyone thinks. There are lots of ways to introduce telematics to your drivers that frame it as a benefit; less in-cab surveillance and more of an insurance policy that helps prevent accidents, exonerate your drivers and keep them safe.

Conclusion

While there is no singular solution to fix the entire trucking industry, an organized business that leverages telematics data not only lures prospective employees, but it can also help your organization use your existing drivers and vehicles more efficiently while keeping them safe on the road.

For more information, contact your GoFleet consultant and ask us how we can keep you and your staff in the driver’s seat.

touchboard, finger pressing on KPI sign

The Top10 KPIs that drive efficient fleet maintenance

Maintaining an efficient fleet management system is key to keeping your vehicles on the road and your business running smoothly. From fuel efficiency to vehicle wear and tear, there are so many variables to consider that the maintenance of your fleet can seem daunting.

However, by regularly monitoring the metrics offered by key performance indicators (KPI), you can quickly identify and address issues before they become major problems. Here are the top 10 KPIs for managing your fleet maintenance more efficiently.

Reduce Fuel Costs and Emissions

Fleet managers face a constant challenge to reduce fuel costs and emissions while maintaining a safe and reliable fleet. A key performance indicator for driving more efficient fleet maintenance management is reducing the amount of fuel used by your fleet. There are many ways to achieve this goal, but some methods are more effective than others.

One way to reduce fuel costs and emissions is to keep your fleet in a state of good repair. This means fixing any broken or malfunctioning parts as soon as possible. A well-maintained fleet uses less fuel, which reduces emissions. Regular maintenance also helps prevent breakdowns, which can cause costly delays and have a negative impact on your business’ performance.

Another way to reduce fuel costs and emissions is to choose the right vehicles for your fleet. Consider the types of trips your vehicles will be performing and select the fleet that is suited to those tasks.

Finally, fleet managers can also reduce fuel costs and emissions by using smart driving techniques, including consolidating trips, avoiding excessive idling, and using the right gear for road conditions.

Improve Driver Safety

One major key performance indicator for more efficient fleet maintenance management is improving driver safety. By reducing the number of accidents and incidents on the road, companies can save money on repairs, insurance and downtime for their vehicles.

Some ways to improve driver safety and, in turn, fleet maintenance management include:

  • Training drivers on safe driving practices. This can include how to handle a vehicle in different types of weather conditions or how to respond to unexpected situations on the road.
  • Installing safety features in vehicles, such as collision avoidance systems or lane departure warnings.
  • Encouraging drivers to take breaks regularly and get enough sleep. This will help them stay alert while behind the wheel and reduce the risk of getting into an accident.
  • Monitoring driver behaviour and providing feedback. This can help identify issues early on before they lead to accidents.

Enhance Customer Service

Average response time measures the amount of time it takes for a service technician to respond to a customer request. Reducing the average response time can help improve customer satisfaction levels and instill faith in your business.

Another measurement is customer satisfaction rate, which identifies the percentage of customers who are satisfied with the service they receive. Improving the customer satisfaction rate can help improve retention and generate revenue.

By tracking and measuring these KPIs, organizations can identify areas where they need to make improvements and take the necessary steps to improve their fleet maintenance management process.

Optimize Fleet Maintenance Schedules

There are a number of KPIs that you can use to optimize your fleet maintenance schedules. One of the most important is vehicle uptime. By ensuring that your vehicles are in service as much as possible, you can improve overall fleet efficiency.

By optimizing your maintenance schedules, you can improve vehicle uptime and reliability, while reducing the overall cost of ownership for your fleet.

Finally, by ensuring that your vehicles are reliable, you can minimize the number of unexpected breakdowns and keep your fleet running smoothly.

Minimize Vehicle Downtime

The best way to manage fleet maintenance is by minimizing vehicle downtime. This can be done by tracking key performance indicators such as mean time to repair (MTTR). This measures the average time it takes to repair a vehicle after it has gone down. The lower the number, the more efficient your fleet maintenance management is.

Other KPIs that can help you manage fleet maintenance include vehicle availability and vehicle utilization. Vehicle availability measures the percentage of time a vehicle is available for use, while vehicle utilization measures how often a vehicle is used.

Reduce Inventory Costs

One way to reduce inventory costs is to drive more efficient fleet maintenance management. By taking a proactive approach to fleet maintenance, businesses can avoid unnecessary repairs, keep vehicles on the road longer, and save on inventory costs.

Lower Vehicle Maintenance Costs

There are a number of ways that you can lower your vehicle maintenance costs and drive more efficient fleet maintenance management. One key way is to track your vehicle maintenance KPI. Some of the most important KPIs to track include:

For example, vehicle repair costs measures how much money you are spending on vehicle repairs. The lower the amount, the more efficient your fleet maintenance management is.

Technician Productivity

Fleet managers must track technician productivity in order to ensure that vehicles are being maintained efficiently and cost-effectively. Productivity tracking can help identify inefficiencies and areas where technicians could improve their efficiency.

Some of the more common KPIs to measure technician productivity include:

  • Number of vehicles serviced per technician per day
  • Percentage of vehicles serviced within the manufacturer’s recommended time frame
  • Number of work orders completed per technician per day
  • Percentage of work orders completed on time

Enhance Driver Productivity

By tracking driver productivity, you can reduce wear and tear on vehicles and improve the overall safety of your drivers. Some important KPIs to track in fleet maintenance management include:

  • Driver productivity, measured in terms of miles driven per hour, or number of deliveries made
  • Vehicle uptime, or the percentage of time that vehicles are in use compared to the total time they could be used
  • Maintenance costs, including both routine and unexpected repairs
  • Fuel efficiency, measured in terms of miles per gallon or liters per kilometer
  • Number of accidents or incidents, measured through safety reports and insurance claims

Overall Equipment Effectiveness

It’s important to track the effectiveness of your fleet maintenance management system with an Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) KPI.

OEE measures how effectively your fleet maintenance management system is operating. It takes into account the availability, performance, and quality of your vehicles. By tracking OEE, you can identify areas where your fleet maintenance management system needs improvement and make changes that will improve its overall effectiveness.

There are a number of factors that can impact OEE. Some of the most important include:

  • The availability of vehicles
  • The performance of vehicles
  • The quality of vehicles

All of these should be considered when tracking OEE. By doing so, you can get an accurate picture of how well your fleet maintenance management system is performing and make the necessary changes to improve its efficiency.

By understanding the key performance indicators that are most important to fleet management, you can focus your time and resources on improving those areas. This will help you achieve better results for your business and improve your bottom line.

truck in the mirror of car

How ZenduCAM’s Multi-Camera Solution Will Improve Your Fleet

Today, most fleet managers understand the value of including a camera (or two) on every vehicle. Fleet cameras assist with driver supervision, improve performance, and can lower legal liabilities.

One study found that simply including cameras was enough to lower insurance costs for 58% of respondents. And organizations that actively integrate advanced fleet cameras into operations see even more advantages.

JTI-Macdonald used smart fleet monitoring to lower preventable accidents by 64% and reduce its average cost per claim by 64%. Operators are always looking to increase efficiency and cut costs, so it makes perfect sense that fleet camera use is steadily on the rise.

Integrating a vehicle monitoring system is always a smart choice. If you’re a manager, the question is this – what fleet camera solution is right for your organization?

Are standalone dash cams good enough? Or will your organization benefit from using a more advanced multi-camera system?

Why Every Fleet Manager Needs a Smart Multi-Cam Solution

Fleet management can be tricky, especially when it comes to supervising drivers in the field. You need a way to know what’s going on without riding with every driver.

In the past, managers had to rely on indirect methods like driver self-supervision, trip recorders, or MVR monitoring services. Monitoring services are great for ensuring route adherence, catching driving violations, and spotting license-related red flags. But these technologies don’t actually show how employees are driving.

Not having direct fleet visibility makes it difficult to analyze performance, monitor driver activities, and make safety assessments. It’s also harder to defend the organization in case of accidents, insurance claims, or any legal disputes.

Fleet cameras represent the only practical way for managers to always have an eye on drivers. However, not all camera options deliver the same management advantages.

  • A single dashcam will provide forward-facing visibility but miss side or rear views
  • Not all cameras assess driving speed or driving safety
  • Not all cameras include geographic information
  • Some camera footage archives can’t be effectively searched by managers or supervisors

Rather than generic dash cameras, choose a fleet camera solution developed with management in mind. ZenduCAM is a smart, multi-camera solution built to make your work more efficient and extend your capabilities. It enhances driver visibility, facilitates remote supervision, and assists with training and performance improvement.

1. Get Complete Driver and Fleet Visibility

Unlike other fleet camera options, ZenduCAM’s multi-camera system shows everything that happens inside the cab and around its periphery. Having a complete view of the driving environment is essential for legal record keeping, performance reviews, and improving safety training.

It’s difficult to understand how well a driver is doing or determine what caused an incident without seeing the driver and what’s around them. A single dashcam doesn’t provide this and neither does a dual camera system where one camera points forwards while the other looks in at the driver.

ZenduCAM doesn’t rely on one or two views. You can have up to four cameras set up on any vehicle. Choose from:

  • a driver-facing camera
  • a forward-facing wide-angle camera
  • a forward-facing driver distraction camera
  • a rearview camera
  • a sideview camera

This fleet camera setup provides a complete 360-degree view of the cab’s interior and exterior. You can view the driver’s actions while understanding what road conditions they are responding to. The footage recorded gives complete context on driver behavior, performance, road conditions, and road safety.

2. Monitor Everyone’s Location

Fleet managers need to see what drivers are doing and know their locations at all times. That’s why all our fleet cameras come with location monitoring technology. You can either use our built-in GPS or integrate the system with a 3rd party telematics device, like Geotab.

This is real-time GPS tracking designed for active fleet management. You get complete fleet visibility, along with tracking control and geographic-based record keeping.

You can track the assets you want – when and where you need to – by setting up a few geofencing rules. Then sit back and watch the entire fleet on a single dashboard.

3. Preserve Driving Footage

ZenduCAM is the easiest way to amass a significant driving footage archive for training purposes and internal use or managing insurance claims, compliance verification, and providing legal backup.

Our fleet cameras automatically upload recorded footage to the cloud with complete location and driver information. In addition, any footage around an accident, dangerous driving, or other event is also stored in a separate library.

Want to use physical storage as well? Each device can store anywhere from 3 to 30 days of footage.

The archive is easy to sort through and can be filtered by time, area, driver, or type of incident. ZenduCAM was designed to streamline the claims management process and improve fraud prevention.

4. Screen For Dangerous Driving

Unless you plan to stay glued to the screen, you need a fleet camera system that can supervise drivers for you. ZenduCAM does this with AI, facial recognition, and night vision technology. It watches for unsafe conditions, driver errors, and road incidents.

The AI algorithms identify dangerous driving patterns like sudden accelerations, turns, swerving, or braking. We paired this with facial recognition technology to identify distracted or fatigued drivers.

When abnormal driving is detected, ZenduCAM gives drivers instant feedback, logs the event, and sends management alerts.

5. Customize Driver Training

Organizations are always looking to improve driver performance and safety. You can leverage ZenduCAM’s real-time driving analytics and camera footage archives into a customized internal training program with a few steps.

  1. Find preventable driving errors and incidents
  2. Use the insights to understand what caused them
  3. Check the footage to see how drivers could have prevented errors
  4. Train or retrain drivers as necessary.

This is similar to how JTI-Macdonald dropped its preventable accident rate. The organization used smart telematics to identify problematic drivers and then developed a targeted retraining program.

You can jumpstart any safety training program by checking ZenduCAM for the most common errors or drivers with the worst performance levels.

6. Customize Alert and Recording Triggers

Whenever a driving rule is broken, ZenduCAM sends alerts via email, text message, or the app. These alerts include video footage, location information, and incident descriptions.

You can customize ZenduCAM’s triggers to control what alerts you get and what driving events it should single out.

Most fleet managers use this to get instant notifications on accidents. But you can also use it to follow new drivers more closely or set alerts for repeated safety violations.

7. See and Manage Everything On-The-Go

Fleet management can’t be confined to office environments and desktop computers. Does the fleet you manage run according to your personal schedule? Do drivers stop working whenever you need to go on break? Probably not.

If your fleet is always on the go, you need a way to manage them on the go. With ZenduCAM’s mobile and tablet apps, you can always keep an eye on drivers and vehicles assets – no matter where you are or what device is available.

The apps are robust enough for full mobile fleet management. You can view live fleet camera footage, check on individual drivers, watch recordings, and see all your alerts.

Get The Fleet Camera Solution You Need

At GoFleet, we leverage advanced and emerging technologies to build world-class fleet cameras and monitoring solutions.

ZenduCAM is an innovative fleet camera system with an array of smart technologies. Ready to improve your management capabilities? Contact us today for your free demonstration.

Illusdtration of connected trucks telematics

How telematics will improve your fleet operations in 2022

Historically, fleet management has not been an easy endeavour. With so many moving parts and dependencies, companies have struggled with the bandwidth to stay on top of their operations and expenditures. There’s the need to ensure that vehicles and drivers are assigned efficiently, that resources aren’t constantly overstretched and that unnecessary costs aren’t racking up – all of which is incredibly difficult if you don’t have real-time information at your fingertips.

Thankfully, innovations in technology are revolutionizing the process. Telematics solutions are shifting the way in which organizations track and manage their fleet operations, yielding a wide range of benefits in the process. Here’s how telematics will improve your fleet operations in 2022.

The Benefits of Telematics

Telematics is a monitoring technique that uses a combination of GPS, dash cam technology and on-board diagnostics (OBD) to keep track of automobiles, trucks, machines, and other assets. By analyzing real-time fleet data, such as location and activity information, end users can use telematics to provide invaluable business insights into their operations and assets.

Since fleet managers don’t have time to measure every single aspect of the operation manually, telematics is a quick and easy way to assess your fleet’s performance at any given moment. The system automatically detects all the details you need to keep track of without needing intervention from human operators.

Telematics solutions offer a comprehensive list of benefits to trucking companies. It can tell you how fast you’re going, how much gasoline you’re using, where your trailers are, whether your vehicles are in good condition, and much more.

Regardless of the solution you choose for your fleet, telematics help your drivers stay safe on the road. Fleet managers can keep an eye on their drivers by checking the safety scores of each individual vehicle, which consider the hours driven and operating conditions. These metrics help fleet managers identify problematic driving behaviours before they become a major liability for the company.

Telematics offer solutions to fleet managers and drivers.

Where Video Telematics is Heading

Telematics is a rapidly expanding market that promises to reach $3,556 million in global sales by 2026, according to reports. The automotive sector is being pushed ahead by the advent of 5G, electrical engineering, vehicle technology, and AI as automobiles become part of the IoT family.

According to Berg Insight, the number of active video telematics systems in North America reached a staggering 2.1 million units in 2020. The active installed base is expected to reach more than 4.4 million units in North America by 2025, growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 16.2 percent.

This new study identifies key insights into the video telematics market. It found that cameras are being integrated into commercial vehicle systems at increasing rates to provide a variety of video-based solutions and are becoming a priority in the transportation sector as such.

With such extreme growth, it is all but certain that telematics and the future of fleet management will go hand in hand.

Why The Adoption of Telematics Will Make or Break Fleets In 2022

Without a doubt, telematics is an essential integration for your operations. It helps you take actionable steps to improve your company’s performance and remain prepared for anything that comes ahead.

With the amount of data collected through telematics, fleet managers can easily identify trends surrounding their vehicles, drivers and assets, and make informed decisions about their company’s future. Moving forward, businesses will define a successful new year with the decision to either adopt or delay the integration of this technology.

How GoFleet Is Leading the Way

With the rapid evolution and adoption of telematics solutions, it can be hard to keep track of what changes are being made. So far this year, there have been some big changes in telematics—and they’re all happening right now.

GoFleet is leading the way in this technology and its shifts, offering new ways in which to take advantage of what telematics has to offer.

Zenducam, one of GoFleet’s most renowned products, has changed the telematics game, allowing businesses to effectively monitor their fleets and related operations.

The innovative dash camera offers features such as the real-time transmission of video, live GPS location, insights on driver behaviour and much more. Zenducam allows fleet managers to readily access data and leverage it to bolster their fleet’s performance while keeping driver and asset safety top of mind.

Solving Problems Through Expertise and Excellence

GoFleet leads the way in ongoing innovation and is helping solve some of the commercial trucking industry’s biggest pain points in the process.

Issues such as staffing shortages, safety and compliance can be daunting, but easily navigated through GoFleet’s revolutionary approach to fleet management.

With the increasing demand for more efficient, smarter, and safer fleets than ever before, GoFleet is positioning businesses to take advantage of the telematics evolution.

GoFleet helps measure, monitor, and manage drivers and vehicles, whether you have one vehicle or hundreds. We guarantee peace of mind by taking on the more tedious operational tasks while you improve your company’s performance.

Our advanced telematics systems are scaled to the needs of your business, delivering only the best quality and performance while following all compliance standards. This way, your business can proceed with clear and achievable goals in mind while we provide curated integrated telematics data to provide advanced support for all your fleet’s needs.

GoFleet’s products and approach to success are a trademark of its efficacy as a solution to fleet management, and ultimately revolve around the priority of customer care. Assisting customers in navigating this ground-breaking technology, GoFleet has established itself as an expert in telematics and is readily accessible to its customers for post-sales support.

By leveraging these cutting-edge solutions, companies will be able to monitor their fleet’s activity more effectively than ever before—and put together comprehensive plans for its future success. GoFleet continues to pave the way for automated fleet management, and plays a pivotal role in defining what it means to be successful in 2022.

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Are Dash Cams Bringing Your Work Culture Down?

If you really want to get an animated conversation going with truck drivers, mention dash cams. While drivers have more or less accepted road-facing cameras as part of the job, many remain skeptical or outright opposed to having one positioned within the cab, tracking their movements and driving behaviours. 

 

Since driver-facing dash cams are becoming the norm, this is a great time to take a look at how dash cam technology can actually be a benefit, not a detriment, to your drivers and to your organization’s safety culture.

 

Dash cam pain points

 

The way in which dash cams are presented to drivers makes all the difference in impacting buy-in and engagement. Many commercial truck drivers feel that dash cams, particularly cab-facing devices, are an invasion of privacy. This sentiment rings especially true in instances where drivers use an area of the cab to sleep and eat (as an aside, sleeper berths are not considered a “home” and as such, are exempt from current privacy laws).

 

Furthermore, disclosure is an essential component that can make or break your work culture. Companies must let their employees know if and how dash cams will be used in their fleets, but the ways in which they do so will determine whether drivers remain within the company, or leave in droves to pursue other opportunities.

There are enough stories on the internet to affirm surveillance culture in some companies that implement dash cams (read our story here about Amazon and Netradyne), often the direct result of a lack of transparency or care for their drivers’ collective safety. 

 

The truth is that most dash cams only transmit a short segment of data that includes time directly before and after an event is triggered. No fleet manager has the time or the desire to search through hours of continuous footage. For a great perspective on how to talk to your drivers about implementing dash cams, read here.

 

ZenduCAM AD+

 

Demand within the dash cam market is expected to increase by 150% (from 2018), no matter what side of the fence your drivers are on. Customers are familiar with dash cams, and have more requirements — and higher expectations — than ever before.

 

The new ZenduCAM AD+ is an HD dual-facing camera that offers best-in-class industry features to solve your technology pain points and improve work culture within your fleet. Combining an advanced AI processor, built-in advanced driver-assistance system (ADAS) and Driver Management System (DMS) capabilities, the AD+ monitors risky driver behaviour and delivers real-time incident detection to protect your drivers, reduce false positives and lower costs.

ZenduCAM AD+

Filter out low-risk events and false alerts with ZenduIT’s industry-leading managed services. Automatically dismiss events that don’t represent an actual risk, and prioritize the most critical events to simplify compliance adherence and improve productivity.

 

Working synergistically with the Trax app, fleet managers have a full field view and access to location updates in real-time on a virtual map. Moreover, advanced facial recognition means you know who has been using your vehicles, and when. You can receive alerts, escalate and coach events, and view the distribution of assets on a cloud-based map instantaneously.

 

The fastest road to a safe, positive work environment is to show your drivers how an advanced dash cam system can keep them safe. Equip and coach them in real-time with our advanced AI and Data Analytics models, designed to monitor unsafe behaviours such as tailgating, speeding, not wearing a seatbelt, and other vehicle movements to alert and coach drivers in real-time while ensuring their privacy. When your drivers get an alert from the Trax Mobile App, they know it matters.

 

ZenduCAM AD+ uses a tested human-machine interface to improve your drivers’ ability to react to dangers on the road. This system increases safety, protects your assets and improves workflow. Moreover, improved algorithms mean your drivers aren’t penalized for driving offences they didn’t commit, leading to an improved workplace.

 

Technological innovation and automation have greatly increased the popularity of dash cam systems in commercial vehicles. Don’t get left behind, improve your safety culture today!

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What Is Telematics? An In-Depth Look

In the most general terms, telematics is the fusion of telecommunications (e.g. phone lines and cables) and informatics (computers) to create a holistic overview of one’s enterprise. Most often, telematics solutions are applied to commercial fleets, automating and leveraging the collection of GPS data across any number of assets.

While certainly not a new industry, the telematics field stands at the precipice of massive growth opportunities. The following is GoFleet’s primer guide on telematics; we’ll show you how it works, the types of data sets that are collected, and how to harness the power of telematics to increase your productivity and profitability. 

 

How did telematics start?

 

The digital science of merging telecommunications channels with information technology (or informatics) began In the 1960s, when The Department of Defense in the U.S. developed GPS — the Global Positioning System. GPS was created specifically to trace the movement of their domestic military assets and improve internal communications.

As the internet expanded, more telecommunications networks went up, transferring data in real-time and enabling information to travel remotely, automating the capture of detailed data for a variety of purposes. Telematics was also made possible due to technological breakthroughs in machine-to-machine communication (M2M) — highly intelligent computer devices that gather and analyze mass data to manage real-world systems.

Today, vehicle telematics integrates wireless communications, GPS navigation, third-party software platforms, hands-free cell phones, automatic driving assistance systems and message encryption. Telematics systems can report on a vehicle’s speed, idling, tire pressure, driver habits, engine fault codes, collision detection and much more.

Added to the tracking device hardware, GoFleet’s software platform, AI algorithms and other patented knowledge allows for accuracy, quality and protection of GPS and other data transference. Known as ‘curve-logging’, this allows our software to discard unnecessary information, while preserving and logging the most useful vehicle maintenance data.

 

How telematics works

 

With regards to fleet tracking, vehicles equipped with Vehicle Tracking Devices; small, durable black boxes that provide superior GPS and asset tracking technology. These telematics devices often plug into an OBD II or CAN-BUS port in the vehicle. Paired with a SIM-card and on board modem, the units enable constant communication across all cellular networks.

The asset tracking, vehicle information recording, and communications transmission devices involved in telematics logging include the following key components:

  • GPS receiver
  • Engine interface
  • SIM card
  • Accelerometer
  • Buzzer or other audio messaging
  • Interface for input/output (expander port)

The devices then retrieve and record an enormous amount of data generated by a vehicle, and transmit that data through cloud technology, providing fleet towners with dashboard reports and command-centre visibility into their operations.

Since telematics devices connect to a vehicle’s sensors and hardware, the type of data they process and analyze includes:

  • Real-time GPS positioning
  • G-force and vehicle speed, measured by a built-in accelerometer
  • Trip distance, routing and time
  • Idling time records
  • Fuel consumption
  • Harsh braking, hard cornering, rapid acceleration and other bad driving habits
  • Seat belt usage
  • Vehicle faults, engine light information and other engine data
  • Battery voltage and vehicle temperature
  • Service reminders and other vehicle maintenance warnings

All of that data is captured, encoded and then transmitted through fleet management software. It is then decoded for authorized, preprogrammed users, allowing for secure transmission of actionable data to IP addresses or cell phones.

This provides the command-centre data needed for generating, viewing and exporting dashboard reports. Business intelligence insights can even create driver scorecards — identifying safe drivers, speeding incidents, or opportunities for scheduled maintenance.

 

Telematics in fleet management

 

Telematics has become an essential tool for commercial and government fleet management. In addition to tracking major assets across the globe using GPS, advances in machine learning and data analytics mean improved fleet performance and productivity. Fleets can even use benchmarking measures to compare safety, fuel consumption or other standards against similar fleets.

One indispensable feature of telematics in fleet management is the creation of advanced analytic comparisons. This provides fleet managers with hard data that can be used to identify optimal travel routes, deter theft and protect assets.

Though telematics data can be stored and sent from closed-vehicle systems, most often a fleet’s telematic technology is shared through open platforms via proprietary software. This allows businesses to integrate other hardware, after-market accessories, and third-party apps for greater efficiency, expandability and insight into business operations, while retaining data privacy.

As telematic devices continue to improve, the most popular telematics integrations for fleet management currently include:

In fact, vehicle security and identification sensors have improved so much that fleets can now authenticate a driver’s identity before they are able to start the vehicle.

Every day, more businesses, nonprofits and government agencies move toward the hard data and superior protection that telematics affords. According to Allied Market Research, the automotive telematics market was valued globally at $50.4 billion in 2018. By 2026, experts believe it will reach $320 billion. 

The benefits of telematics are self-evident; they offer diagnostic tools that prolong the life of vehicles, warn of pending issues and identify areas of concern. Telematics contribute to ROI and savings so exponentially, Verizon recently wrote: “32% of fleets using fleet management technology achieved a positive ROI in less than a year,” sharing this and more data points in their 2021 Fleet Technology Trends Report.

Industries currently employing telematics for their fleet tracking include:

 

The benefits of telematics for commercial fleets

 

The applications for telematics cannot be understated; it harnesses a rich ecosystem of information — from granular drivetrain details to post-collision reconstruction of driving events — ensuring the health of your vehicle and the safety of everyone on the road.

 

Safety tracking:

 

Fleet managers can use telematics to monitor the speed and location of their vehicles, as well as ensure that drivers employ good driving habits now and in the future. In the event of an accident, telematics can help identify who was at fault and what the road conditions were prior to the event, ensuring the safety of their drivers and preventing future incidents.

 

Maintenance:

 

By understanding the entire operational life cycle of their vehicles, including hours of service (HOS), warranty recovery and preventative maintenance scheduling, managers can find areas of improvement and identify problems before they occur.

 

Insurance:

 

Insurance companies can leverage telematics data to assess risk factors within a fleet and adjust premiums accordingly. Factors such as accidents, fuel consumption and engine wear can all determine — and possibly lower — insurance rates for your fleet.

 

GoFleet telematics support

 

GoFleet and our trusted partners have identified seven key areas where fleet management receives the greatest direct advantage from telematics support:

  1. Improved Productivity: Using real-time GPS tracking and automatic trip reporting, fleets can greatly improve dispatching, routing, ETA notification and customer service.
  2. Increased Safety: In-vehicle driver coaching alerts to drowsiness or other risky driver behaviours; collision reconstruction and theft location notifications help protect your assets.
  3. Optimization of Fleets: Streamlining vehicle servicing with predictive maintenance and remote diagnostics improves fuel management, driver habits and vehicle integrity.
  4. Fleet Compliance: Automates FTA reporting, inspections and compliance logging.
  5. Platform Integration: Makes sure all your mobile asset apps and equipment communicate seamlessly, integrating camera, sensors, CRM technology and more.
  6. Adaptable Sustainability: Reduces the environmental impact of carbon emissions, adapts to emerging power sources, and analyzes the cost effectiveness of electric vehicles.
  7. Insurance Premiums: Because fleets can now share their safety compliance data as proof with insurance companies, risk assessments often generate lower premium costs.

 

The future of telematics

 

As GPS tracking systems and M2M technologies advance, the Internet of Things (IoT) continues to grow; every advance made brings us closer to the edge of a telematics revolution. From enhanced collection and capture of intelligence data to performance benchmarking and reporting for fleet optimization, the future of telematics is bright. Contact your GoFleet consultant to discuss how telematics can bring tomorrow’s technology to your fleet, today. 

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How Telematics Can Set Shuttle Bus Services Up For Success

If you’ve ever been in an airport, visited someone in a hospital or required private transportation to an event, you’ve likely used a shuttle bus. In today’s fast-paced world, telematics provide benefits to shuttle bus fleets, giving businesses an edge for retaining top-tier employees while providing peace of mind to commuters. Every year, more companies invest in shuttle services; with the right telematics solution, those same companies can also realize improved productivity, visibility and efficiency. 

 

Tracking

 

Vehicle tracking platforms, such as GoFleet’s Bus ETA, provide essential information to drivers, fleet managers and to public citizens to ensure a seamless, automated experience. Ultimately, tracking saves you valuable time and resources, offering a window into your current operations, inefficiencies along routes and reporting features.

 

With the app, passengers can review live ETA data right on their phones, with just one click. They can view current vehicle routes, expected total route time, as well as stop and start points, all in real-time. Automation streamlines these processes by reducing wait times and reducing the number of inbound callers for real-time updates, while fostering goodwill with passengers.

 

Passenger Safety

 

GoFleet has a number of product offerings that can be scaled to your fleet’s requirements, including commercial dash cams such as ZenduCAM. Perhaps one of the best use cases for ZenduCAM resides with shuttle buses. Imagine being able to track passenger safety by ensuring that your driver follows all necessary protocols. Dash cam footage keeps your drivers compliant, keeps your commuters safe, and helps reinforce good driving habits.

 

Vehicle Diagnostics

 

When you use a GoFleet product or service, you’re leveraging a rich telematics ecosystem that can provide all kinds of data sets to improve your business. Monitoring the health and productivity of your shuttle vehicles is an essential part of any holistic fleet solution. Connecting fleet vehicles and fleet managers in real-time and with daily or historical reports for optimum fleet performance.

 

Our GO9 GPS vehicle tracker, for example, not only provides accurate data on vehicle location, speed and trip distance, it can also extract valuable data on a vehicle’s overall “health”, letting you know the status of the odometer, engine faults and much more. Connecting fleet vehicles with fleet managers in real-time helps to gauge when and if a vehicle requires maintenance, track fuel efficiency and reduce the time and frequency of inspections, all of which stop vehicle problems before they start. With the right diagnostics tool, you can easily optimize your fleet’s performance and save money in the process.

 

Telematics data is critical to the success of nearly every type of fleet. GoFleet’s solutions are comprehensive, scalable and offer easy installation and a user-friendly interface. Whether you use shuttle buses to manage guest parking, take travellers to and from the airport or need your commuters to arrive at any destination efficiently and on time, we can help you take full control of your fleet’s operations for better business outcomes. Contact one of our consultants today to see how GoFleet can work for you.

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Back to School Brings New Telematics Opportunities For Bus Fleets

This month marks the back-to-school season, offering students across the country a mass exodus from lockdowns and a welcome break from online learning. These new beginnings bring with them opportunities for school administrators and third-party fleet managers to revamp their bus operations using technology and telematics data to make the school year safer and more efficient. Below we’ve listed some of GoFleet’s product and service offerings that are available to both schools and to the public to help keep kids safe.

 

GPS tracking of bus operations with Bus ETA

 

GoFleet’s Bus ETA app marks the first step in safety and communication between parents and their child’s school. Bus ETA is an app that allows school admins to provide live location updates of arriving or departing school buses. 

 

The app also allows parents to track their child’s bus to make sure it arrives/departs on time by allowing the parent to create routes and define which students (or “Travellers”) are assigned to those routes. Bus ETA is updated automatically, so that parents (or “Guardians”) have access to real-time updates on their computers, tablets, or mobile devices.

 

Bus ETA is integrated with ZenduIT ecosystem (same functionality as ZenduCAM alerts) to create and review multiple routes, monitor multiple travellers and allow their guardians to log their information in the event of an emergency. A 2-step verification process ensures safe guardian login.

 

Knowing when and where a school bus will be at any given time — and having that information available on a live app — improves efficiency by reducing wait times and avoids having to wade through a field of update calls from anxious parents. Routing and dispatching can be done quickly, providing a live location for all buses employed by the school and increasing visibility between parents and the school’s administration. 

 

The school can import and manage guardians and travellers while creating and managing routes from the travellers addresses. Conversely, guardians can track several bus routes and travellers from one mobile app while reviewing a history of arrivals and notifications. Ultimately, knowing when and where a bus will arrive allows families to organize their day without the fear of missing a ride to school. 

 

Tracking student safety with GO9 trackers

 

It’s all well and good to know where the bus is, but what if your child isn’t on it? Thankfully, Bus ETA can merge seamlessly with ZenduIT’s tracking system for a more comprehensive (and safer) solution. For example, our third-party GO9 tracker plugs directly into the vehicle to track its routes, and a traveller tag tracks the student’s mobility when used in conjunction with a GO9 + NFC reader. Whether you’re tracking your child’s bus, or tracking the bus and your child, our technology gives schools and parents peace of mind while promoting safe travel to and from school.

 

ZenduCAM for heightened safety

 

Our commercial dash cam solutions provide a wealth of options for fleets of all sizes. Connecting a product such as ZenduCAM to your buses gives you data sets for all kinds of cost-saving and safety-promoting initiatives, including:

  • Accident reconstruction: In the unlikely event of an accident, ZenduCAM helps you determine who was at fault, as well as the events that led up to the collision.
  • Road compliance: Dash cams keep your bus drivers accountable by preventing unsafe driving habits such as rapid acceleration, harsh braking and turning.
  • Passenger-facing cameras can help scan your precious cargo to keep them safe and accounted for.
  • Driver scoring and training: Your dash cam system provides an overall scoring system to help identify areas of improvement, incentivize good driving habits and keep drivers and students safe.

 

When integrated with GoFleet’s rich telematics ecosystem, Bus ETA can help create a 360 solution for schools and bus fleets. Through years of IoT experience, our specialists have a wealth of knowledge and an ability to recommend the right integration of apps and hardware for different verticals. We design, develop and implement premium automation solutions to help drive success — and your vehicles. Contact your GoFleet consultant today and see how we can bring your bus fleet to the top of the class.