Appy Fleet, launched in beta at Company Car in Action earlier this year, has chosen Fleet Management Live 2016 to announce that from tomorrow (October 19), fleet operators of any size, anywhere in the world, can now use the app-based product entirely free of charge, on a permanent basis.

Speaking from the company behind Appy Fleet, Trak Global Group, CEO Nick Corrie said “We’re setting out to radically alter the way that fleet telematics works.

"Our aim is simple – to provide fleets of all sizes, anywhere in the world, with a highly functional telematics system that focuses on managing driver behaviour - for free, for good.

"By using mobile app telematics technology that has been critically honed for the insurance sector, we’re able to remove the cost barrier presented by funding, fitting and supporting a traditional, hardware-based fleet telematics system and make it accessible for all."

He added: “We’ve operated a highly successful telematics business for seven years, but in developing Appy Fleet over the past 12 months we behaved like a start-up, with a mission to disrupt the market by looking at it through a different lens to all the existing players.

"We want to show that UK technology companies can adopt the same visionary thinking as any Silicon Valley success story, and we want to be to fleet telematics what Amazon has been to retail, and what Uber has been to how we all book a taxi.”

The Appy Fleet Manager Portal is configured to let users quickly and intuitively navigate their way around the information that identifies the greatest requirements for intervention, and includes live vehicle tracking, driver behaviour league tables and much more.

The Appy Fleet Driver App turns each employee’s smartphone into an accurate GPS data-gathering device, which can be placed into private mode – ideal for those with permitted personal use of company vehicles, and vehicles within the grey fleet.

By uniquely tethering the app via Bluetooth to each vehicle they jump in, the system provides driver ID, too.

Corrie added: “The UK’s road safety record is among the best in the world, and Trak Global has played a part in making UK roads safer during the last few years.

"In our young driver insurance business, Carrot, we’ve taken the highest risk group of drivers on the UK’s roads – young, newly qualified drivers – and reduced accidents by 42% by placing meaningful driving feedback in their hands via a telematics app.

"With Appy Fleet we want to extend that success story and help make the rest of the world’s roads safer places, too.

"One in three road traffic collisions in the UK involves a vehicle being driven for work purposes, and the same problem echoes globally.

"That’s way too many - fleet operators know they need to get to grips with this problem, and we genuinely want to help them achieve that in the easiest way possible, with the fewest possible barriers to adoption.”

Fleet decision makers can sign up for a free place for themselves, and their fleet, HR and finance colleagues, for free at www.fleetmanagementlive.co.uk.