If your business runs a fleet of vehicles or if you and your employees drive a lot as part of your day-to-day job, vehicle tracking is a great way to ensure that you are getting the most out of your vehicles and your drivers. Telematics can be fitted in your vehicles, from one car to a whole fleet, allowing you to track your vehicles and drivers 24/7. One little box gives you a huge amount of information and data regarding your fleet. Here are just a few of the benefits of adopting telematics in your business:
Improve fuel efficiency
Identifying inefficient driving practices such as speeding or excessive braking and accelerating will help drivers to drive in a more fuel efficient manner. Telematics can provide this information for your business and can also help you to reduce the amount of time vehicles are idle and identify the fastest routes to reduce mileage. This will reduce the amount of money spent on fuel and will also promote greener, eco-friendly driving, which is good for the environment and also your company’s reputation.
Improve driver behaviour
Gaining insight into the behaviour of your fleet drivers will allow you to identify any inefficient or dangerous drivers or driving practices. From this knowledge you can determine where additional training and risk management is required to improve driving practices, and you can also reward good drivers to encourage these behaviours in the future. Better drivers will make your service more time efficient, will reduce maintenance costs for your fleet and also protect the reputation of your company.
Stay informed about crashes
Most ‘crashes’ that occur are minor mishaps, but staying informed about these incidents is still important as it can help with insurance claims. As the technology used for telematics advances, their collision detection is becoming more and more accurate. For example, RAC’s telematics have been proven to detect crashes and non-crash events to a 92% degree of accuracy by monitoring acceleration and vibration signatures (versus an industry standard of 50%). It has the ability to detect collisions at speeds as low as 5mph, which are just as significant to vehicle costs as high speed crashes. It can also separate out real collisions from false positives, if someone drives over a kerb or a speed bump, for example.
Know where your driver/vehicles are at all times
Telematics gives you the ability to locate your fleet at all times. This lets you keep an eye on drivers to ensure that they are where they are supposed to be, letting you also clearly differentiate between business and personal mileage. It also improves your communication with both the drivers and your customers. If, for example, you are delivering goods to a customer, you can give them an accurate time of arrival, improving your customer service.
If you want to stay in full control of your fleet and operate it as safely and efficiently as you can, you should be installing telematics in your vehicles. It’s a simple solution that provides a great deal of functionality to improve your business.
