Telematics: The science of vehicle tracking

Telematics – the word itself may not be common but it’s hard to imagine a modern company without  instant access to the location of all of its vehicles. And that’s just the start. Telematics devices can lower insurance payments, find engine faults, and save money.

In the near future all of the billions of cars in the world will have some form of telematics device.

How does your company get the edge on the many competitors in the telematics field? The answer is simple – On-Board Diagnostics.

Enhanced Tracking with On-Board Diagnostics (OBD)

In the beginning, most vehicle tracking devices were exclusively GPS based. GPS based systems were able to deliver vehicle location information and allowed companies to track shipments and log employee time. Companies developed sophisticated algorithms to determine the best routes for their drivers to take based on time and safety.

However, companies that continue to base their vehicle tracking equipment exclusively on GPS technology are set to lose out. Adding OBD to vehicle tracking  gives companies easy access to information that can enhance their current devices. OBD allows easy access to previously unavailable data such as vehicle idling times, speeding, and over-revving.

OBD allows companies and individuals to block unsafe driving practices such as using a mobile phone while driving. Via remote diagnostics, OBD can notify a company immediately if one of its vehicles has an engine problem. And the best part is that all of this information is already available on all modern cars.  All you need is the key software to unlock this treasure chest of valuable data.

Eliminate Fuel Waste Due to Bad Driving Practices

On-Board Diagnostics enhanced telematics lets operators know the location of their fleet AND monitor driver behavior. OBD can tel you how much time drivers spend idling and when they are speeding. It also lets you monitor other unsafe and wasteful driving practices such as over-revving and sharp braking. Keeping a lid on these activities can lower fuel costs as much as 20%.

Real life examples suggest that OBD monitoring can save your company money. In one study UPS found that driver idling time cost them more than $188 per driver per year. BLS Trucking, a lumber transport company in the USA, found that by using OBD to monitor their trucks they saved $900 in fuel per truck in their first year.

Save Time and Money using Remote Diagnostics

In addition to saving money on fuel costs, OBD lets you monitor the health of a vehicle. Using OBD you will be immediately notified if a vehicle has an engine problem. This allows you to fix only vehicles in need of repair instead wasting time adhering to rigid maintenance schedules.

In many cases, OBD can even tell you the specific nature of the problem. This means that you can send out a technician with the correct parts to fix the problem right away.  UPS found that by using remote diagnostics it was able to reduce the cost of maintenance jobs from  $1000 to  $20 or $30.

A report on Fleet Management by Frost and Sullivan concluded that remote diagnostics was the service that most interested fleet operators, saying “remote diagnostics and prognostics can greatly reduce operating costs… enhancing both cost saving and mobile resource productivity”.

Remote diagnostics will prove particularly important in the vehicle rental industry, allowing rental companies not only to accurately log vehicle mileage and fuel usage but also to get instant notification of any vehicle problem. As city car clubs and short term rentals become more popular, and vehicles are left scattered around an area rather than being returned to a central hub, OBD will become a uniquely valuable monitoring tool.

Prevent Dangerous Driving

Another large segment of fleet tracking involves “executive vehicles” or cars used by company employees as part of their work. Having an OBD tracking system can deliver some great benefits here as well. OBD can be used to block mobile phone use while driving, ensure that employees are wearing their seat belts, and to enforce good driving practices such as taking frequent breaks on long drives. This can provide a safer environment for employees and the public.

Using a mobile phone in the car is a dangerous distraction. A 2012 report by the American National Safety Council (NSC) estimates that at “least 24% of crashes in 2010 involved drivers using cell phones, including 1.1 million crashes where drivers were talking on cell phones and a minimum of 160,000 crashes where drivers were texting” . Employers may be liable for these accidents especially if employees were driving company cars or using company phones.

For this reason the NSC advocates that companies ban the use of mobile phones in cars. As well as protecting public safety, banning mobile phone use while driving may also reduce company auto insurance premiums.

Pay-as-you-drive (PAYD) Insurance

PAYD insurance offers drivers reduced insurance premiums based on monitoring their mileage and driving habits using an OBD device. PAYD insurance rewards good drivers with lower rates to the benefit of many. A 2008 study suggested that two-thirds of US households would reduce their insurance costs by using PAYD insurance with an average savings of $270 per vehicle.

According to Richard Hutchinson, former general manager of usage-based insurance for US insurance company Progressive, the largest concern for US customers and regulators is “locational privacy”.  This is a concern that is addressed by offering an exclusively OBD-based device with no GPS component. OBD-based systems do not track the movements of the customer and instead concentrate on other driving behaviors such as frequency of hard braking and driver mileage.

Not only do individual consumers stand to benefit from PAYD insurance but we all do. The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) promotes PAYD insurance as a way to not only save drivers money but to cut carbon dioxide emissions and traffic accidents.

Today there are approximately 500 million OBD equipped vehicles in the world. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development predicts that by 2050 there will be 2.5 billion.

In the future each and every vehicle will require an OBD device for Fleet Tracking, Remote Diagnostics, PAYD Insurance, as well as monitoring fuel consumption and efficiency.

Are you ready to harness this growth and maximize your profits?

The OBD II Solution

On-Board Diagnostics (OBD) is way of communicating with the Electronic Control Units (ECUs) on a vehicle. OBD II is an international standard of communication that has been mandatory in North America since 1996 and in Europe since 2001 (2004 for diesel cars).

Until 1996 vehicle manufacturers kept their OBD methods confidential. OBD II was designed so that consumers would not be forced to get their cars’ engine problems fixed by a dealership. OBD II is an open standard written and regulated by the International Standards Organization (ISO) and the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE). This means any company or individual with the proper expertise can use OBD II information.

All modern vehicles must support OBD II and can communicate via a standard connector present in every car.  At the start OBD II was mostly used for engine diagnostics, but with the growth of fleet tracking, OBD II has become useful in many different ways.

By monitoring and recording some commonly available OBD II parameters, one can build up a very clear picture of a driver’s behavior. Some of the most used OBD II parameters are:

• Vehicle Speed
• RPM
• Fuel Level
• Time Since Engine Start
• Throttle Position

Using OBD parameters, you can monitor idle time, engine health, trip distance, over-revving, hard-braking, and speeding and calculate fuel efficiency.

The OBD Experts Solution

OBD Experts is an international company that designs, produces, and licenses OBD II software.  Our OBD II software is used by the some of the largest telematics manufacturers in Europe and North America and is currently deployed in tens of thousands of devices worldwide.

OBD Experts provides a complete catalogue of software licenses. Large companies may choose to license the complete source code for OBD II which they can then use in all of their products. Smaller companies may prefer a customized executable that will perform the exact OBD II operations required for their particular product.

Whatever your budget we can provide software to suit you at a fraction of the cost of buying a “solution” from another company.  With OBD Experts software you can add OBD II to your product without spending years developing the software yourself. Our OBD II software is the most comprehensive solution on the market today.