What is Telematics?
The term telematics became coined in the United States in the 1970s, and is now popularly used in the automotive and fleet industry to describe the intersection of telecommunications and information technology.
Telematics definition: Telematics is a field comprised by the combination of telecommunications and informatics to deliver, receive and track information to devices over a network. In the modern day, telematics is a commercial, fleet industry term that often refers to solutions that plot a fleet vehicle’s movement using GPS and On-Boarding Diagnostics (OBD) technologies.
Vehicle Telematics
In the commercial fleet industry, telematics typically refers to vehicle telematics or fleet telematics. Fleet or vehicle telematics designates the commercial use of telematics for vehicle operations, location and management between a system and individual vehicles (usually part of a larger fleet).
According to Gartner, telematics in the automotive and fleet space refers to the use of wireless devices and “black box” technologies to collect and transmit key vehicle use, maintenance and servicing data.
What is a Telematics System?
Telematics systems or devices are typically referred to as “black box” technologies that connect to OBD or other ports such as CAN-BUS. SIM cards and modems in the device allow for cellular communication.
Other telematics systems and devices can be installed in various ways, depending on their type and function. For example, temperature monitoring systems require professional installation in the cold compartment of a vehicle, whereas OBD-port mounted systems can be installed easily within minutes.
How Telematics Works
The telematics device retrieves vehicle data such as position via GPS, speed, engine and operational status – which the telematics system transmits to a central server enabled by the modem to communicate through a wireless network. The server then interprets the vehicle data and securely displays it to end users (fleet managers, fleet operators, etc.) typically through mobile devices.
Additional types of useful data in addition to location, speed and vehicle status captured by telematics devices give insight into driver behavior, including idle time, harsh braking and speeding. Analysis of this data transmitted from telematics systems can provide insights to fleet managers into driver patterns and help improve fleet safety.
Advantages of Telematics
There are a number of benefits of telematics that fleet managers can leverage when integrating a telematics system into their fleet vehicles. Some key advantages of telematics systems include:
- Improved Fleet Safety: The ability of telematics systems to monitor, collect and transmit data in real-time from commercial vehicles provides fleet managers tremendous insights into driver behavior including harsh breaking habits and speeding. This telematics data helps in turn improve driver training programs and coaching based on quantifiable actions.
- Cost Effectiveness: Telematics systems can help find vehicle inefficiencies and waste such as poor routing, fuel slippage or vehicle idling, which can help significantly increase fuel efficiency. The data from telematics devices provides direct insights for fleet managers to quickly gain visibility into driver performance. In turn, route management can be optimized for fuel efficiency.
- Vehicle Maintenance: Since most telematics systems are directly connected to commercial vehicle diagnostic ports, engine data is automatically retrieved. Fleet managers can thus easily access essential maintenance information, including fuel consumption and engine load. With this telematics data, fleet operators can track vehicle operational issues more easily and regularly create maintenance schedules when needed.
- Driver Efficiency: Real-time GPS data from telematics systems helps commercial vehicle drivers with route optimization and planning, to account and plan for weather conditions and traffic. In addition, this is supported by fleet managers using telematics data for trip reporting and dispatching routing tools.
- Compliance: Telematics devices and systems electronically track fleet vehicle drives which make it easier for fleets to maintain ELD compliance. Fleet managers can use telematics systems to monitor records of duty status with electronic logging of hours of service, IFTA reporting, and vehicle inspections.
Disadvantages of Telematics
While providing great benefits to fleet management with real-time GPS insight and vehicle information, there are also some telematics disadvantages. Some challenges of telematics systems include:
- Telematics Cost: Telematics systems can be expensive to install and implement in commercial vehicles, particularly when needing to have hardware and software. GPS systems have various prices, whereas cellular-based tracking typically starts at around $700. In addition, there are monthly costs per user associated with transmitting and obtaining data from telematics devices over the network.
- Telematics Insurance: Black box insurance is an additional related cost that can come with telematics systems. Some disadvantages of telematics insurance policies include: Curfews and restrictions to hours of driving, limited mileage, poor driver behavior (such as hard braking, speeding) increasing costs.
- Privacy Issues: Certain telematics data, such as vehicle location, is considered private to some companies. Due to privacy concerns for some companies, some fleet insurers have adjusted policies to limit the data obtained from telematics systems.
- Regulations: In the United States specifically, some states have regulations and restrictions that cause issues with telematics systems and telematics insurance. Regulations including expiration dates, renewability, and premium charges can create issues for companies looking for telematics insurance and newly implemented telematics systems.
Future of Telematics
The expansion and Improvements in telematics technology in the automotive and fleet industry has greatly impacted efficiency and operations in fleet management. As telematics technology and its implementation continues to grow, there are new areas of research and innovation which include:
- Improvement of cellular network and cellular network architecture to 5G and beyond — faster network speeds, increased capacity, and low latency for improved Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) communication
- Intelligence data which provides insight into smart cities and urban analytics for smart cities, and autonomous vehicles
- Remote fleet management, which has grown quickly with the Covid-19 pandemic – allowing fleet managers to monitor telematics systems and manage fleet operations from a distance with remote monitoring technology.
- Cybersecurity improvements for deeper data security. Given the amount of sensitive data obtained from telematics systems by fleets, cybersecurity measures have become a big focus, with integrated databases becoming a popular trend.
- Expansion of Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) which is growing in popularity by helping fleet managers customize services and rethink fleet management processes by utilizing vehicle sharing, idle vehicles, and reducing carbon footprint.
Does LifeSaver Mobile Work With Telematics Systems?
LifeSaver Mobile is an app-based, hardware-free distracted driving solution that helps prevent drivers from using their mobile devices while driving. In combination and partnered with telematics systems and solutions, LifeSaver Mobile’s distraction avoidance technology helps tackle fleet safety from a preventive and proactive approach. Easy to install and deploy, LifeSaver Mobile complements fleet telematics systems with no additional hardware to install in the vehicle.
We are partnered with some of the industry’s biggest telematics providers, including Envue Telematics, Geotab, GoGPS, GPSTrackit, Northern BI, VerizonConnect, Blue Arrow Telematics and more.
