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A comprehensive national survey of fleet managers, finance managers and business owners from the fleet, transport, courier and construction industries has revealed the most common misconceptions they have about telematics. Today, I’ll run through these myths to clear up why telematics can be so useful useful in carrying out haulage jobs in a cost effective way, in order to maximise profits. “It’s Just Too Expensive” The survey found that almost a third of companies yet to install telematics have hesitated due to their concerns over its cost. However, of those who responded to the survey, 44% listed cost saving as a primary motivation for its installation. Fuel efficiency is optimised through the use of Account Management software to actually make haulage jobs cheaper to complete – so that’s the first myth busted! “Drivers Don’t Like It, or They Don’t Know It’s Installed” The survey indicated that some fleet managers and drivers feared that the implementation of telematics systems indicated a lack of their employers’ trust. However, of those surveyed, a mere 5% claimed their drivers’ response to the installation was negative. That the drivers on the ground carrying out these haulage jobs don’t know they’re being tracked is a common misconception and nothing more. It’s not a case of ‘Big Brother keeping an eye on drivers’ – more than 90% of the survey’s respondents said they let their drivers know about the installation of telematics before the fact. “It’s All About Driver Efficiency” The use of telematics will improve fuel efficiency, however nearly one third of survey respondents claimed their biggest motivation for installing telematics was to know where vehicles are on haulage jobs and to be able to track location in real time. The ability to give live updates to end clients at the press of a button has a positive impact on customer satisfaction, too. “Telematics Doesn’t Actually Improve Fleet Performance” As we’ve just pointed out, before telematics nearly a third of fleets experienced issues monitoring where their vehicles were located in real time. This negatively impacted route planning and fuel consumption and, ultimately, cost effectiveness. Similarly, 25% had problems with drivers’ behaviour before implementing telematics systems. With telematics, fleet managers are able to reroute drivers in real time to make improvements, monitor their driving style and characteristics and therefore they can find the most cost effective manner to reach precise locations and maximise the profits of the haulage jobs undertaken by your drivers. Telematics Gets a Tick From Us The improvements in terms of route efficiency through real time rerouting, decrease in fuel consumption and consequential increase in profitability means that telematics is here for the long run, and you should get on board by getting it on board to reap the benefits too. Norman Dulwich is a Correspondent for Haulage Exchange, the leading online trade network for the road transport industry. Connecting logistics professionals across the UK and Europe through their website, Haulage Exchange provides services for matching haulage jobs with available drivers. Over 4,000 transport exchange businesses are networked together through their website, trading jobs and capacity in a safe 'wholesale' environment.
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