How to Implement IoT Technologies for Vehicle Fleet Management

Overview

It’s become increasingly important for transportation companies—or any business with employees and vehicles in the field—to have a quicker, cheaper, and better strategy to manage their fleets. Helping customers optimize their operations is a big opportunity for MSPs and other tech companies.

In this episode of From Promise to Profit, Khali Henderson, senior partner at BuzzTheory and vice chair of the CompTIA Emerging Technology Community, and Robert Forget, chief revenue officer at Credivera and co-chair of CompTIA’s IoT Advisory Council, discuss the benefits and strategies for implementing internet-of-things (IoT) solutions around fleet management.

Challenge

Traditionally, vehicle fleet management has been more reactive than proactive. That’s because fleet management historically has required cobbling together data from disparate sources, offering little to no ability to avoid problems proactively. The only option has been to pull together engine codes, maintenance reports, and automotive engineering standards to understand what has occurred in their fleets after the fact.

Meanwhile, little information is available about the vehicle operators, whose activities and capabilities are integral to safety and efficiency. Common technologies offer limited insights into a driver’s activities while driving. Nor can they identify or support operators whose cognitive state might be creating an unsafe situation.

Solution

Today, innovative IoT solutions allow companies to not only gather data about a vehicle, but also its operator and the environment around the vehicle. Higher throughput and lower-cost cellular technologies are improving connectivity opportunities. As a result, companies can add enhanced features inside their telematics fleet management product stack and act on data-driven insights.

For example, an IoT-based solution can gather data from smart phones in order to track drivers’ behavior no matter which vehicle they operate, rather than following the vehicles only. The technology employs data gathered by smart phones, which are much more powerful than traditional fleet management tools. They also provide more granular data, including acceleration and deceleration, precise vehicle location and orientation, and even a driver’s cognitive impairment from fatigue or other causes. 

Soon, companies will be able to use LiDAR (next-generation RADAR) to monitor the 360-degree environment around a vehicle in 3D. That technology, already used in self-driving cars, will also come to fleet management via smart phones.

Outcome

The real-time data gathering provides better insights than “having to stitch together that data on the back end,” said Forget.

Outcomes depend on the client and use case, but the main enhancement is the ability to proactively reduce risk and waste.

“Improving safety no longer has to become a bottom-line hit for that client,” said Forget. “It’s all merging together now. Whereas before we used to have point solutions that were very much focused on one outcome or one thing.”

These benefits can lead to outcomes such as:

• Informing drivers about their unsafe behavior or cognitive challenges, suggesting a break, and triggering workflows in response.
• Proximity detection to warn people of dangerous situations at the worksite.

“As technology becomes more prevalent, we’re trying to move from that reactive state to a preventative state across the board, especially when it comes to safety,” said Forget.

Summary

Enhancing fleet management with an end-to-end IoT solution can significantly improve safety and efficiency. However, it involves many layers, so MSPs need to find the best entry point to introduce solutions.

“That’s everything from connectivity, devices and sensors all the way up to the software and the UI/UX that’s going to be used to drive those guaranteed outcomes from your clients,” said Forget.

Forget says as technology and improved and costs come down, businesses no longer have to make a choice that boosts productivity while compromising safety. MSPs can use IoT-enabled data to achieve both aims at once.

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