Vehicles are a big-ticket capital expense for most field service organizations and come with a lot of additional costs for maintenance, insurance, fuel, and in some cases anxiety. Company trucks and vans are a big rolling advertisement for your business, but if they are involved in an accident or your technicians are not driving courteously or safely, it can be a hit to your company’s reputation.

Many service vehicles have been equipped for some time with telematics equipment to monitor vehicle behavior and location. This gives owners more of a bird’s eye view of where the trucks are at (for routing, scheduling and safety purposes), as well as a clue as to whether technicians are speeding, driving erratically, or needlessly idling and wasting fuel.

But other innovations are on the way that could give fleet owners more peace of mind and increase technician surveillance. ABI Research released a report, The Future of Fleet Management: Expanding Use Cases and Connectivity Requirements, that outlines some of these emerging technologies and what changes they may mean for fleet management.

While traditional fleet management solutions have focused on asset tracking, location, and compliance reporting, new use cases are on the rise that include vehicle theft prevention solutions, driver safety systems, yard management, and video surveillance.

Increased Focus on Driver Safety and Vehicle Theft

Vehicle theft and driver safety are an outgrowth of location tracking. New systems can generate automatic alerts if a vehicle is broken into or on the move when it shouldn’t be, and fleet management systems can use sensors and telematics to monitor driver behavior and create scorecards. The report notes that advanced use cases, including video monitoring for driver safety, are becoming more common in the industry, and will soon be integrated with electric vehicle technology and autonomous vehicle systems.

According to the ABI Research report: “These future use cases will drive even greater demand for advanced Internet of Things (IoT) devices, data management platforms, and, perhaps most importantly, an unprecedented level of localized global connectivity … Given these developments, fleet managers in the future will require a completely different type of network and connectivity service provider, one that can offer a range of highly available networks and a connectivity management platform designed for advanced IoT applications.” That will likely include a mix of traditional cellular networks, Wi-Fi, 4G and 5G.

Many service fleets operate in a limited geographic space, so some of the long-range connectivity issues in the report aren’t all that applicable. But issues around driver surveillance and the potential for technology to reduce maintenance costs are interesting for service organizations. Newer fleet management solutions can make better use of sensor data from tires, engines, and fuel monitoring systems on the vehicle, and apply predictive analytics to reduce or anticipate maintenance.

The video monitoring piece would involve using dash cams to monitor loading and unloading of a vehicle, as well as driver behavior. For example, you could tell if a driver is starting to nod off behind the wheel. The ABI Research report cites data from ASIS International that showed “businesses with connected telematics solutions like in-cab dash cams can reduce insurance claims by at least 25% and crashes by around 50%.”

Those types of savings are probably more relevant for long-haul trucking, but there may be service organizations that could see some benefit from dash cams for remote technicians that could help monitor clock-in times, unauthorized vehicle use, or providing an extra safety check for technicians that work in remote areas or in hazardous conditions. They could also provide evidence in case of an accident.

Technicians have generally gotten used to GPS/location tracking solutions after objections about monitoring early on. When it comes to the incorporation of more video monitoring, it poses the question of whether dash cams would be a bridge too far, or be seen as just an extension of existing systems?

That depends on whether or not organizations can afford to install them, of course. I’ve written before about adoption of EV service vehicles and autonomous driving technology, which has been slowed by availability of reliable, purpose-built trucks and the high cost of adoption. (ABI also has a blog about commercial EV adoption that looks at some of these trends.)

The ABI report cites cost as the top barrier to adoption of new fleet management technology (by 45% of respondents). Companies also cited the lack of internal infrastructure for managing telematics data, and vendor confusion related to implementing these systems. Fleet operators will also need access to robust and reliable wireless networks to make sure the data is delivered in a timely fashion.

If you’ve investigated some of these new fleet management technologies like dash cams and/or advanced telematics, I’d love to hear about your experiences.