Are you looking to improve your fleet management operations utilizing the innovations of telematics data exchanges (TDEs)? Driver telematics data is your solution to unlocking valuable insights that produces long-term benefits for fleet managers and drivers to reach company objectives.
Understanding Driver Telematics Data
Telematics is the merging of big data and telecommunications, creating a powerful way to gather information about fleet vehicles and drivers as they go about their daily business. In our industry, telematics devices collect and transmit data on fleet vehicle use, automotive servicing, and maintenance requirements.
You’re probably most familiar with this technology as a part of your fleet management software. It’s used for dispatch, to monitor fleet maintenance, to boost safety practices, to optimize profits, and to improve the overall operations of commercial fleets.
Benefits of Telematics Data Exchanges
Telematics data exchanges is a convenient resource for insurers, drivers and automakers. It merges driving and vehicle data from multiple carmakers and gives insurers uniform and normalized data. As a result, they can accelerate innovation and lower premiums of usage-based insurance (UBI).
There are several benefits to utilizing driver telematics data, including:
Increased Driver Safety
When drivers participate in a telematics data exchange, then they receive real-time feedback on their driving behavior through the data collected from their vehicles submitted in the exchange. Drivers can quickly identify unsafe driving behaviors and adjust their habits to improve their on-road performance.
Reduced Cost of Ownership
According to automotive pricing guide Edmunds, automotive insurance accounts for 10% of overall ownership costs. Telematics data exchanges are used by fleets to help facilitate UBI programs by tracking vehicle driving data. These programs offer better incentives and lower prices to fleets who adopt safer driving habits or reduce their mileage. Thus, reducing insurance premiums with driver telematics data is a practical way to help fleets save money.
Easier Insurance Shopping
Telematics data exchanges provide individualized driver risk scores based on one’s personal driving behavior and driving history. Possessing this score equips managers and allows for a smoother insurance shopping experience.
Better Claims Ratios and Fraud Detection
Implementing telematics data exchanges improves fleets’ claims ratios and reduces claims costs. For example, the telematics data collected during a collision can assist in defending claims and minimizes legal fees.
What You Can Do With A Telematics Data Sample
Telematics solutions gather critical vehicle data necessary to optimize fleet management. There are several ways to apply the telematics data sample learnings, including:
Vehicle Tracking
Telematics data samples usually contain GPS data, which is used to track fleet vehicles. It’s often used to dispatch or reroute vehicles in the field, as well as to help drivers find the most efficient routes. Vehicle tracking data can even be used to track down assets after a theft.
Maintenance Improvements
One exciting use of telematics data is called predictive maintenance. This means fleets can maintain and repair minor issues before most drivers would even be aware of them, meaning fewer breakdowns and less downtime.
Telematics systems can also help fleet managers track everyday scheduled maintenance across a fleet of any size, containing any type of vehicle. This means your smart maintenance alerts can schedule routine maintenance tasks more frequently for vehicles that get more use, or those that are beginning to show their age. Use of such systems can boost vehicle performance over time and keep your trucks on the road where they belong.
Safety Tracking
A good telematics program includes alerts and tracking for risky driving behaviors. When fleet managers are aware of incidences of speeding, hard braking, and the like, they can provide training and coaching to get drivers on the right track. Without telematics, they may be blind to these bad habits, resulting in accidents and costly moving violations.
Insurance Risk Assessment
One often overlooked benefit to a robust telematics system relates to insurance. When insurers can monitor a fleet’s safety and its drivers’ behaviors, they can mroe accurately assess risks. This often leads to lower premiums and other insurance benefits. When dashcams are also incorporated as part of a fleet’s telematics system, claims processing becomes more efficient and accurate as well.
Azuga Fleet Telematics System
Azuga fleet features comprehensive fleet telematics. Traditionally, insurance agencies price commercial vehicle policies for customers using data including driver history, vehicle class, zip code, industry classification and bankruptcy data in order to assess risk. Azuga, however, augments the traditional approach by providing detailed real-world data about driver behavior across an entire fleet. Multiple core driver and vehicle metrics are measured and analyzed by the technology. These factors include:
- Crash impact detection (which is perhaps the most important factor)
- The detection of driving safety events (including speeding, sudden acceleration, hard and harsh braking and cornering),
- The time of day and weather conditions when any safety event occurs
- The degree and length of any driving safety events
Insurance companies take the information from Azuga and use it to calculate the actual risks of a fleet. Understanding risk is about having better information, and these companies aggregate this data to create right-fit policies.
Accidents, claims, and injuries are events every fleet is trying to minimize. By using Azuga Fleet to identify high-risk driving behaviors in the workforce, different incentives and programs can be used to mitigate these problems.
What’s Next?
Through the advancements of telematics data exchanges, commercial fleets are provided imperative information to efficiently optimize their operations. Driver telematics data ultimately contributes to long-term value and cost savings, as well as practical insights to boost workforce productivity.
