How Best To Use Fleet Data

By Brian Albright, Field Technologies

Fleet management solutions provide business intelligence and data that can be used to optimize processes beyond dispatch and routing.

Fleet management solutions used to be simply about tracking vehicles, but advanced fleet solutions long ago surpassed dots-on-a-map functionality. Modern fleet management tools can provide the type of Big Data that companies need to optimize business processes far beyond simply getting a truck from point A to point B.

Fleet management systems now typically provide driver safety (speeding, harsh acceleration, harsh braking, etc.), vehicle maintenance (trouble codes, routine maintenance alerts), and route compliance data, along with labor hours, hours of service and fuel tax tracking, and even information about the operation of secondary equipment (like cranes, baskets, or pumps attached to the vehicle). Fleet solutions can also be integrated with fuel card tracking, driver workflows, vehicle diagnostics, theft detection and immobilization solutions, and can work in tandem with road-facing cameras and lane departure sensors that have been introduced by vehicle manufacturers.