Fleet operators should invest in a basic tracking device rather than a system that gives a wealth of data on how the vehicle is being driven, according to some telematics providers.

“Having information on driver behaviour is powerful but the return on investment isn’t as obvious,” argues Peter Millichap, marketing manager at Navman Wireless.

He suggests the main benefit of telematics is improved productivity - and that comes from vehicle tracking not from data on behaviour like harsh braking, accelerating and cornering speed.

Chris McClellan of tracking provider Remote Asset Management (RAM) suggests companies could increase productivity by 10-20%.

A tracking system shows what time employees are starting and finishing work.

“It’s about making sure that if a job crops up at 2.30pm on a Friday someone goes and does it,” says Quartix’s managing director Andy Walters. “An extra invoice every day could have a massive impact.”

Staff morale can also be improved, according to McClellan, as work can be distributed evenly.

Tracking also ensures timesheets are correct.

“Employees might fill out a timesheet on a weekly basis rather than day by day and forget the hours they have done. You could end up billing one client for four hours and another client for two hours and it should have been the other way round,” McClellan says.

“Tracking also helps resolve any disputes with clients about what time people were at a site.”

There may be a significant saving on overtime payments, according to Walters. “You could save £2,500 a year per vehicle just by making sure that the timesheet reflects the work done.”

Midland Door Services, which uses Navman Wireless’ tracking solution, says it has saved two hours a day in overtime for each of its eight engineers, equating to £28,000 a year.

Tracking can allow a company to differentiate between business mileage and private mileage, helping to meet HMRC requirements on keeping accurate mileage records as well as allowing the company to clamp down on authorised use of vehicles.

Walters says customers have saved 50 litres of fuel a month by making sure vehicles are not used at weekends.

He also points out that some customers have insurance agreements that state a vehicle cannot be used privately

“One company had a couple of accidents over the Christmas period when vans were not supposed to be used,” says Walters. “Since the company has had tracking units fitted employees have not been using the vans over Christmas.”

Tracking can also help recover stolen vehicles.

ALD Automotive has seen one self-insured fleet save more than £350,000 from the recovery of stolen vehicles in the past 18 months alone thanks to ALD’s ProFleet2 telematics device.

For some fleet managers, such as Tony Raymond at Morrison Utility Services, being able to prove whether a company vehicle has been involved in an accident or not is a key benefit of vehicle tracking.

If there has been an accident tracking allows companies to examine the circumstances surrounding it such as vehicle speed. Companies can also assess how long employees have been driving for and whether they are taking adequate breaks, helping to meet their duty of care requirements.

If speeding is an issue suppliers may be able to assist with employee communication. For instance, RAM has a letter drafted by a solicitor which customers can use.

There are fuel savings to be gained by making sure employees adhere to speed limits.

“There is a huge difference in fuel consumption between driving at 50mph and driving at 70mph,” says Millichap.

Tracking solutions such as Tom Tom Link 300 can report speed by road type so companies can tackle all speeding not just speeding on motorways.

Other fuel savings come from being able to allocate work to the nearest employee.

“Managers can allocate work in the most efficient way,” says McClellan. “They can see on a map who is best placed rather than ringing five or six people to see where they are.”

Making sure the best route is taken is another benefit which can cut mileage and save fuel.
To assist with routing fleet operators could consider linking their tracking device with navigation technology or other software to assist with routing. Paragon Fleet Controller, for instance, has planned versus actual route comparisons and alerts users if a delivery is delayed or missed. Key Performance Indicators such as the percentage of on-time deliveries can also be reported.

William Salter, managing director at Paragon Software Systems, says: “It’s one thing to use routing software to plan your operation properly – but unless you monitor what you actually do against your plan, you won’t know for sure if you are really achieving your planned efficiencies and service levels. That’s why the integration between route optimisation and vehicle tracking is so crucial. It’s better than tracking on its own, and it’s better than route optimisation on its own.”

Tom Tom Business Solutions says 60% of its customers opt for the navigation device alongside vehicle tracking.

Analysing vehicle utilisation is another benefit of vehicle tracking.

“If you find that half of your fleet is idling for 75% of the day you can look at downscaling or doing more work,” Stephen Rapicano, managing director of Ctrack, points out.

However, Rapicano does not believe tracking is sufficient for fleet operators’ needs.

“Tracking is a fundamental requirement for organisations but things have moved on considerably and it’s not the sole requirement,” he says.

“Once you have had tracking for a while and got to grips with the basics you set your sights higher.”

Andy Yeoman Trimble’s managing director of Fleet Solutions Europe agrees: “There is value from tracking and it’s a great solution for the first adopter but within three months you will want to know what else you can do and progress to a full telematics solution.”

Raymond is now interested in upgrading his system to a driver behavioural one.

“We’ve got two main objectives,” he says. “One is to reduce accidents by acting upon danger signals in driving styles and the other is to encourage drivers to drive more economically to save fuel.”

Tracker says that tracking on its own is its most popular product but interest is growing in more sophisticated systems that cover driver behaviour.

“12 months ago it was relatively new but we are seeing more and more people requesting driver behaviour information. Most tender submissions ask for it,” Robin Fellows, product manager at Tracker says.

Quartix is also noticing the trend. “In the last three or four months every customer we meet talks about driver behaviour monitoring,” Walters says. “The price of fuel has an awful lot to with it.”

Quartix offers three telematics solutions: Info Point, Info Plus and Corporate. Currently 90% of its sales are InfoPlus, which includes driver behaviour monitoring. However, the company has been running a special offer this year which has meant that Info Plus costs just a fraction more than Info Point (£20 per vehicle per month compared to £19.50). The Corporate package is aimed at fleets of more than 200 vehicles with multiple depots and costs £25.75 per vehicle per month.

Other suppliers also suggest the price difference between a tracking system and a system that will record behaviour such as the rate of acceleration and deceleration and cornering speed isn’t significant. For instance, Tracker and Ctrack both quote £3 to £5 per vehicle per month more while TomTom’s Link 300 tracking solution includes an accelerometer to measure harsh braking, accelerating and cornering as standard.

The most expensive option is a CAN-bus system.

Millichap acknowledges that fleet operators are “missing out on another layer of opportunity” by opting for a tracking only solution.

David Yates, director at ALD Automotive, adds: “Driver profiling focuses on improving how vehicles are driven and this is where telematics can really make an impact.”
He points out that there is “little value” in choosing fuel efficient cars to reduce fuel costs if they are “driven in a less than ‘eco’ manner”.

Fuel savings of 10% are possible by tackling driver behaviour according to Walters.
One of the benefits is being able to measure mpg.

“You might have some drivers doing 30mpg, some doing 40mpg and some doing 20mpg and you can address why,” Yeoman says. “It might be behaviour or it might be fuel fraud.”

Some telematics solutions give drivers instant feedback on their driving. For instance a green light might show they are driving fuel efficiently while a red light shows they need to improve.

Driver feedback can also be given via a league table. TomTom’s system grades drivers on speeding, engine idling, harsh braking and fuel consumption, for instance.

Finding out how a system measures engine idling is important as some may be more accurate than others.

Basic tracking systems may measure idling by connecting to the vehicle ignition.

“A tracker will tell you whether the ignition is on or off but the driver may be sat in a layby with the radio on. It can look like the engine is idling but that’s not correct,” Yeoman says.

It is possible to measure ‘true idling’ without needing to tap into the engine management system though.

Tracker’s system picks up electrical noise to define that the engine is running, for instance.

There are also potential insurance benefits from a driver behaviour system.

Earlier this year Trimble announced a partnership with Zurich whereby the insurer’s fleet customers can reduce their premiums by fitting telematics.

“Behaviour is the biggest single trigger of propensity to have an accident,” Yeoman says.

“Customers can derive a 10-15% insurance discount by sharing data from our system.”

Accident management provider FMG Support recently launched Ingenium Dynamics - a telematics solution which assesses whether drivers are low, medium or high risk based or more than 100 factors such as erratic lane changing and speed of acceleration. The system takes into consideration risk elements such as Black Spot locations, weather and safety cameras.

The system was developed with The Transport Safety Research Centre (TSRC) at Loughborough University and Dr Lisa Dorn of Cranfield University. Dr Dorn advised that drivers shouldn’t be given feedback via a display in the vehicle as it would be a distraction. Instead a driver league table based on the number of incidents per miles driven is produced. Drivers who have continual medium or high risk journeys are referred to an e-learning centre which has more than 2,500 interactive driving video modules. By completing the modules drivers can recover points to put back into the league table.

John Lancaster, head of technological development at FMG Support, says fleets can expect a 10% reduction in their accident rate and that the system is the price of a mid-range telematics system although every customer profile is different. FMG Support is currently in discussions with insurers about insurance discounts.

But if fleet operators opt for a sophisticated telematics system isn’t there a risk they will be swamped by data?

“If you’ve never had any solution and you try to manage vehicle location, fuel and safety it is very difficult to do,” Yeoman acknowledges. “You need a phased implementation.”

Rapicano agrees: “You need a benefits realisation plan. Go for the low hanging fruit first and then realise further benefits.”

When choosing a provider it is worth considering whether they can easily upgrade you from a basic tracking system if your requirements change.

“With our system you can install the box in the vehicle and start with tracking and if you want more data we can switch the capability,” Yeoman says.

One fleet manager who is new to telematics is focusing on route planning, start and finish times of engineers and business mileage compared to private mileage but the system has the capability to provide data on other areas if needed.

It’s important to find out how much support suppliers will provide and what reporting they offer.

“The key is to have a limited dashboard display and apply exception reporting criteria only and make this user-definable according to each individual customer’s needs,” says Yates.
Fellows adds: “Traditionally suppliers threw lots of data at fleets but now it’s about giving answers to problems. We are working on an enhanced KPI dashboard and we will build it for each business if necessary. For instance, you could have a KPI on idling, the customer agrees an acceptable level of idling per trip and if the vehicle exceeds that the system will flag it up.”

FMG’s system also works by providing exception only information to fleet managers so they are only given details on the medium and high risk drivers.

Ctrack says it will do data analysis for its clients and work with them to get to “the nitty-gritty”.
Besides data analysis fleet operators need to think about management culture if they opt for a driver behaviour system.

“Changing driver behaviour requires management time and effort,” says Millichap. “It may also require a commitment to driver training.”

Millichap suggests larger fleets may be better placed to invest in more sophisticated telematics as they will probably already have the right management structure in place, have regular driver feedback sessions and do driver training whereas the average size business may not.

However, other suppliers argue that driver behaviour information is relevant to SMEs. TomTom says any company with more than 10 vehicles can get benefits from information on driver behaviour.

To determine whether a basic tracking solution is the best option fleet operators need to think carefully about what they want to achieve from the system. If some of the main aims are improving productivity, stopping private use of vans, tackling speeding and better journey planning a tracking system may fit the bill.

“If you’ve got a scaffolding crew and all you care about is whether they left the depot at 8am and arrived at 9.30am then tracking is good enough,” Yeoman points out.

However, if a company wants to know how vehicles are being driven and are prepared to change driver behaviour if necessary in order to achieve further fuel savings and improve the safety of the fleet they need to look beyond tracking.

Making the case for investment

Companies have a choice of buying or leasing telematics systems. It could be an external lease arrangement or a lease arrangement with the telematics provider. There will also be a monthly service charge.

A telematics trial is one way to prove whether the system is worth investing in. Ctrack advises installing it in 10 to 20 vehicles for six to eight weeks. One of its customers installed it in 500 vehicles, analysed the benefits and then rolled it out to the rest of the fleet.
Tracker has a battery-powered tracking device which is suitable for a trial as it doesn’t need to be installed and can be placed in a glove box.

Customer testimonials, especially of similar businesses, are also important to the business case according to Fellows.

Suppliers typically estimate a payback period of six months to a year, but some say there is an instant saving.

Yeoman says: “The return on investment will depend on the level of action taken with the data but just knowing the system has been installed will mean drivers think twice about driving 50 miles to pick up their mates to go to the football so there is a saving there.”

The return on investment can depend on the industry and what the fleet is doing, according to Sergio Barata, EMEA manager at Telogis. He also suggests there will be different benefits for different parts of the business.

Yeoman agrees: “What drives efficiency will be different for different companies. For some it may be engine idling, for others it may route compliance.”

Fleet operators also need to consider how they will measure the savings. Measures could include: vehicle mileage reduction, number of jobs per day, hours staff are working, idling time and improvements in fuel consumption. There are other less tangible benefits such as duty of care and customer service improvements.

Getting information on driver behaviour

Suppliers can obtain driver behaviour information in different ways. Some link into the vehicle’s OnBoard Diagnostics – the OBD-II port – while others use an accelerometer combined with GPS.

The most expensive – but, arguably, the most accurate – way to get data is to link into the CAN-bus.

Giles Margerison, director UK & Ireland of TomTom Business Solutions, likens this to “open heart surgery”.

“It’s a major operation and it could do wrong,” he says. “You can get more information from the CAN-bus but it’s more risky. You get very detailed engineering-style reports. Linking into the OBD-II port is more like having a heart monitor and observing what is going on.”

Linking into the CAN-bus also risks invalidating the manufacturer warranty.
Different solutions may be required for different manufacturers, or even different model years owing to different manufacturer coding.

The best option could prove to be a factory fit device. Barata says a manufacturer device will “give all the information that you get from a telematics provider and more”. Telogis is partnering with Ford to offer telematics in America and Barata believes that by 2015 nearly all manufacturers could offer telematics.