There’s no doubt that the global telematics market is growing rapidly as fleet managers seek to gain maximum knowledge about every aspect of the vehicles under their control. Streamlining vehicle operations through optimisation of all operating parameters can add up to considerable savings across the entire fleet.
Geotab has a stated aim of advancing security, connecting commercial vehicles to the internet and providing web-based analytics to help customers better manage their fleets.
The company claims its open platform and Marketplace – which offers hundreds of third-party solution options – allows both small and large businesses to automate operations by integrating vehicle data with their other data assets.
As an IoT (Internet of Things) hub, the in-vehicle unit allows device expansion to provide additional functionality.
Processing billions of data points a day, Geotab leverages data analytics and machine learning to help customers improve productivity, optimise fleets through the reduction of fuel consumption, and enhance driver safety.
The company’s products are represented and sold worldwide through authorised Geotab resellers.
Mark Bucknall, Geotab Associate Vice President Sales ANZ says the company is keen to announce its presence in Australia.
“We’re big in North America and Europe and growing strongly worldwide, and we’ve had a presence for some years in Australia,” he says.
“However, we have now established a local office and are building out our trucking solution to really help drive productivity and safety outcomes for Australian transport operators.”
The open platform, Mark says, undergirds why Geotab is confident it has the best solution in a very competitive space.
“We have a Marketplace of solutions, giving customers the ability to import and export their own data and integrate with their existing software. That could mean connecting with sensors monitoring vehicle mass or tyre pressures, sending data to ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) systems for tax applications, or dash cams for safety and compliance checks,” he says.
Geotab claims that after 20 years of continuous growth it has become the global leader in data collection for connected vehicles and is relied upon by more than 40,000 businesses.
In fact, the company says on a global scale it collects around 40 billion data points daily from over two million connected vehicles, of which close to 800,000 are heavy trucks.
Geotab’s fleet management platform is suitable for all kinds of fleets across the entire spectrum from the largest roadtrains to medium-duty trucks, vans and cars — whether internal combustion powered or electric vehicles (EV).
The company drives fleet performance, it asserts, by focusing on six ‘pillars of innovation’ with each pillar delivering value to its customers by managing costs, increasing efficiency, or providing access to its Marketplace of partner services.
The six pillars include Productivity – tracking routes and dispatching drivers to ensure a productive fleet; Optimisation – driving efficiencies and cost savings in fuel use and scheduled maintenance; Safety – analysing and encouraging safe driver behaviour with reports and in-vehicle coaching; Sustainability – reducing carbon dioxide and particulate emissions by integrating EVs into fleets; Compliance – ensuring road rule compliance with safety checklists and speeding reports; Expandability – open platform enables the customer to integrate hardware or software options in a tailored solution to drive performance.
“We understand what Australian heavy truck operators are looking for and we are building our product portfolio to fully cater to this segment of the market,” Mark says. “We are looking to provide full details of this at the Brisbane Truck Show in May this year.”
One of the unique features of Geotab’s open platform, he says, is it enables clients to import or export data to other systems.
“We have our Marketplace which is like an App store that connects a lot of different providers,” Mark explains. “If, for example, a transport operator had their own internally built Electronic Work Diary or they used a third-party EWD that has been approved by the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator, that’s the sort of thing that we can integrate with the telematics data.
“This means there are a lot of options for customising the platform so that it will do exactly what the transport operator needs it to do.”
Another benefit of Geotab’s system, according to Mark, is that the data is recorded every time something changes rather than at set intervals of every 30 or 60 seconds.
“Our curve algorithm selects the important data and discards the useless data which actually provides a more accurate presentation of what’s actually happening with the vehicle,” he says.
In sum, Geotab’s telematics system is designed to provide the ultimate solution for data collection that is fully customisable to suit each operator’s individual requirements.