“Telematics enables vehicle tracking so its location and movements can be monitored. The system delivers important information to fleet managers and supervisors who are given an overview on a vehicle’s designated route and can analyse how it’s being driven, contributing to safe driving behaviour,” says, James.
The system collects data on various aspects of driver performance, such as speeding, sudden braking and rapid acceleration, and by analysing this data companies can build up a picture of risky driving patterns or pinpoint the actions of a specific driver. This enables them to decide whether driver safety training is necessary, or whether a persistent offender should be put on an internal driver safety programme. Telematics can therefore help to prevent potential incidents by identifying risky drivers before anything happens.
The first phase of Brigade’s Vehicle Telematics System is a basic design with further, more detailed updates to come next year. This release will be able to track speeding violations. A vehicle can be seen as a dot on a map and this tracking information, combined with a database of road speeds, can produce a speeding report.
The initial package, designed for cars, vans and trucks, will also detect when a driver is stationary but with the ignition on and engine running. Fleet managers will get a notification, and being able to spot and subsequently reduce lengthy periods of idling, which has obvious environmental benefits as well as keeping costs down.
“The geofencing capability of the telematics system is another important aspect,” says James. “Geofencing is a virtual geographic boundary, defined by GPS, which enables software to trigger a response when a device enters or leaves the area. Fleet managers can set their own geofences according to their areas of work. For example, if a company has fifteen different depots countrywide and the manager wants to know where a specific vehicle has parked for the night, they can click on the vehicle and telematics will tell them which geofence it’s within and then tie that to a particular depot, region, or even country if the lorry is driving internationally.”
The follow-on to the advantage of achieving safer driving is the subsequent reduction in maintenance costs. Fewer incidences of harsh braking and rapid acceleration will result in less wear and tear on brakes, discs and pads, engines operating at cooler temperatures, and tyres, axles and gearboxes also lasting longer. “Tracking vehicles isn’t the only advantage to a telematics system,” says James, “if you’re looking at a return on investment, not needing to replace a gearbox for an extra 50,000 or even 100,000 miles means the system more than pays for itself.”
“A notification can also be sent if someone breaks into a lorry and disconnects the battery,” says James. “The telematics device has a built-in back-up battery which will last for four or five hours, and a manager can track where it is on a map after it’s been disconnected. They would need to act fairly fast, but they will have a trace. Generally, when a vehicle is stolen, thieves won’t go far to start with – they’ll park it in a nearby street and leave it for two days in case it has a tracker, so it can usually be recovered within that two-day window. After that, non-tracked vehicles tend to disappear completely. Insurance companies will often give incentives to companies with tracking devices in vehicles.”
One question from potential buyers is likely to be whether the system will simplify adherence to current regulations, and James offers reassurance on this. Data from tachographs has to be kept for a minimum of 12 months in the UK and Europe, and currently managers have to go out in person to each truck, download that week’s tacho data and save the files onto a hard drive or upload them to cloud storage.
“We’re releasing a tacho package for the UK market where tacho data can be downloaded remotely and stored for the customer for the regulatory period or longer if required,” says James. “We can also analyse whether the driver had any violations during the journey. For example, if they were only allowed to drive a certain number of hours in a day and that number was exceeded. A notification is sent to the fleet manager and the driver so they’re both aware, and we’re looking at creating a form so it can be signed by the driver once he has finished the journey. Up until now, violations have had to be reported to the driver by the manager, whereas this ensures the violation is recorded.”
Future updates to the system will include crash detection; in the event of an incident, a fleet manager will be able to detect it, contact the driver to find critical information, such as their condition and location, and arrange for assistance. This could also be paired with a remote CCTV system in the cab, producing video clips of the incident and pulling together all the useful data in a single unified platform.
“We’re also releasing more devices soon which can look at diagnostic trouble codes (DTCs), engine error codes and so on, so fleet managers will find out straightaway if engine oil is getting low or other maintenance is necessary. We’re also starting to look at how to avoid fuel thefts in countries where this is a major problem. Telematics could track where and when a theft took place and whether the driver is likely to be involved. Fuel usage across journeys could also be tracked, so if one driver’s using more fuel than the others a manager can investigate and check why the vehicle’s engine is burning more fuel or is otherwise less efficient.”
Specific markets can also be targeted; James mentions the waste industry as an example. Waste bins could be tagged with RFID and a system developed to check the tag, so that when the bin is tipped up it can work out the weight of the rubbish that’s been emptied into the vehicle. This information can be collated to make waste vehicles’ journeys more efficient by calculating times and routes between trips back to the depot for emptying.
The telematics system Brigade is releasing shortly is compliant with electric vehicles, and can tell drivers information about battery levels and whether the charge will last for a particular journey, and for pool vehicles, which one to take to maximise efficient route planning and battery use. Further updates on EV efficiency are in the pipeline utilising the current platform, such as a route planning guide which assigns a specific vehicle to a driver depending on the route they’re taking that day to maximise efficiency between charging times.
“The use of telematics has so many exciting benefits for fleet managers,” James adds, “and we’re anticipating a huge amount of interest in our new system.”
Brigade’s Vehicle Telematics System launched in November 2023. Kontaktieren Sie uns to find out more or view our Video Telematics product page.
