Fleet Management News & Business Info | Commercial Carrier Journal
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52 COMMERCIAL CARRIER JOURNAL | JULY 2015 COVER STORY: THE INTERNET OF TRANSPORTATION THINGS vice president of OEM strategy, sales and marketing for Omnitracs. Fleets may be able to adjust engine pa- rameters remotely to decrease maximum idle when going into California to meet the state's emissions laws, or adjust gov- erned road speeds when traveling through parts of Texas. The electronic control unit of the engine and automated transmis- sion also could be updated remotely with new software for warranty campaigns. Ultimately, OEMs will be able to add the capability to change the way trucks operate according to topography and cli- mate. "You can optimize for fuel economy in certain conditions," says Glasmann, who spent 17 years at Navistar and three years at Volvo before joining Omnitracs. "A lot of those things are in the works today" and could become reality within three years, he predicts. As OEMs develop closer partnerships with telematics providers, the model of mobile computing will be the opposite of what it used to be – where carriers were forced into using a single supplier for hardware, software and wireless commu- nications. Omnitracs and other providers will become "hardware-agnostic," meaning that they will develop software compatible with a number of third-party telematics devices and display options, Glasmann says. With PeopleNet's telematics device coming to Peterbilt and Kenworth trucks, nothing from a technical standpoint would prevent a third party from access- ing data through its PMG, Botticelli says. PeopleNet envisions creating an envi- ronment akin to Apple and Google where anyone can develop apps for an in-cab environment and online, and PeopleNet would collect a fee. "It would be nice to have a business model where we are col- lecting a toll on data," Botticelli says. Telogis sees the same trends happening with its own OEM partnerships. Frey says the likelihood that third-party apps will be able to use telematics data from its de- vice raises the bar for competition, which is a good thing. "When you are a cloud-based company, every day you have to earn your business," he says. "We have to assume that some- body can find the best application that works for them." Daimler Trucks North America installs Zonar's telematics system in its vehicles at the factory. "If you like someone else's program, you should be able to run it," McQuade says. "I don't see what stops that. I don't think it is wise for a telematics vendor to not be open to that concept." Deep-dive analytics For fleets, the growth of connected devices in, around and outside of vehicles quickly can reach the point of diminish- ing returns. Considering all of the options for using sensors and reporting capabili- ties, the growing volume of information can seem overwhelming. Robust back-office tools and power- ful analytics capabilities can solve that problem by giving the end-user only the essential information necessary to make decisions and take actions to achieve the desired results. Technology suppliers see tremendous growth opportunities for collecting and analyzing data as the volume of information from the vehicle and other sources continues to grow. G.E. Capital Fleet Services offers a full suite of financing and management services to commercial fleets. Its core telematics application collects data for its various cloud-based tools that include route planning and management dash- boards. Its big-data analytics platform, Bright- Works Insights, uses telematics data and numerous other data sources for correla- tion analysis, says Mike Morasco, GECFS telematics product leader. Customers are able to see the correlation of accidents to driving behaviors such as speeding, red- light violations, lane departure warnings and more to create a clearer, more defined profile of risky drivers. Ultimately, the Internet of Transpor- tation Things is not about adding new technology for technology's sake, but for creating an ecosystem of apps that gather contextual data to interpret, achieve and improve the desired outcomes for pro- ductivity, safety and efficiency. Telogis' Software-as-a-Service mobile telematics platform is installed by a number of truck manufacturers, including Volvo, Mack, General Motors and Isuzu. Zonar's 2020 Mobile Tablet runs its own proprietary applications such as elec- tronic logging and vehicle inspections, as well as cus- tomized user and third-party applications.