Research by industry telematics experts has identified the most important factors when choosing a system.
Transport management and navigation featured highly, along with vehicle and driver performance monitoring, which would allow fleets to look at how long drivers had spent behind the wheel and how the vehicle was being driven.
Industry analyst Frost and Sullivan believes that these benefits will lead to a massive increase in demand for electronic vehicle management throughout Europe.
Commercial vehicle telematics is forecast to be incorporated in 1.3 million new vehicles a year by 2005, with a total vehicle market value of E1 billion.
By 2009, the number of vehicles equipped with telematics systems is set to touch 5.4 million, creating a potential market worth E4.7 billion.
Frost and Sullivan spoke to 240 fleet and transport managers from across a range of industries to assess company attitudes to the systems.The pan-European survey revealed that about 70% were aware of telematics systems, particularly in larger companies and fleets.
But Franck Leveque, transportation programme manager for Frost & Sullivan, said: 'They did not seem to be aware of potential gains in other areas such as business development, delivery information and insurance.
'More than half were uninformed about the ability of telematics to improve customer relationship management and reduce insurance premiums.'
Most companies said they would be happy to shoulder a one-off charge for a system, rather than monthly payment.
On average, buyers felt the 'perfect' system would cost more than £1,500 – too high for most UK car fleets to bear.
Leveque added: 'The key for the success of telematics in the commercial vehicle environment would be to position the sale from a consultative approach.'
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