AI will ‘change fleet completely’, says Geotab

Artificial Intelligence (AI) will transform fleet management, simplifying the most complex of tasks and speeding up reporting processes.

That’s the view of Geotab UK lead Aaron Jarvis, who adds that the “opportunities are huge, and fleet will be changed completely”.

Geotab is already using LLM – Large Language Model – in its telematics platform which enables fleet managers to ask a question rather than interrogate a dashboard.

“For example, they could ask who is my riskiest driver, or which 10 vehicles are most likely to break down, and the system will tell you the answer,” Jarvis said.

The software will also accept third party feeds from multiple sources, including leasing, rental and fuel cards, and amalgamate the data to provide solutions to problems.

“Fleets are starting to use it, but it will constantly change and rapidly evolve,” Jarvis said. “It will speed up the reporting process with a conversation replacing the dashboard – in the short-term. In the long-term, you won’t need to ask the question; the system will do the work for you. It will automatically inform you of, for example, a possible breakdown and book the car in for service.”

He added: “It won’t replace a fleet manager, but they will have to figure out how to use it; it will allow them to focus on other priorities.”

Geotab has started to pool data from similar fleets to share best practice knowledge, such as telecoms companies in the USA and Spain; in the UK, where it has 140,000 connected vehicles with 1,000 customers, it has identified four key segments: transport & logistics (last mile), vocational (utilities/construction), field services and private ambulance area.

“We build knowledge sharing and then work with manufacturer partners and show them the data points that the customer needs,” Jarvis said.

Traditionally, each manufacturer would collect and transmit data differently, with variations in the number of data points. Consequently, managers of mixed fleets face inconsistent datasets.

By integrating OEM-specific signals such as diagnostic fault codes, the MyGeotab platform can provide vehicle-specific maintenance alerts to help fleet managers to minimise vehicle downtime.