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Leading digital retailer Argos is implementing a new transport management solution from Microlise.

The tool gives their transport teams live visibility of vehicles and expected estimated times of arrival so they can take action to maximise their on-time performance, as well as proactively keeping customers informed of any delays to their deliveries.

In addition, contact centre representatives will gain access to precision live delivery information letting them accurately respond to queries from customers.

Argos, whose parent company Home Retail Group PLC was bought by Sainsbury’s in September 2017, is currently installing telematics hardware across the entire two-man UK home delivery fleet.

[quote float="left"] “We are constantly looking to new and innovative tools to help us improve our customer experience -Laurence Garnett, Head of Home Delivery at Argos

“Delivering a positive customer experience is an absolute priority for us and customers tell us that being on-time or informing them of any change is really important,” said Laurence Garnett, Head of Home Delivery at Argos.

 

“We are constantly looking to new and innovative tools to help us improve our customer experience. Microlise will be a very powerful solution to help us further improve our high standards for on-time delivery as well as keep customers up to date with the very latest delivery information.”

Fleet Performance enables driving performance to be monitored through an A to G rating system. Via an app on their smartphone drivers can monitor their performance against benchmarks on a whole range of criteria including idling, acceleration, braking, cornering, cruise control usage and speed.

This information enables driver trainers to target training where it will be most effective and will help Argos to be more fuel efficient.

“Argos is a brand that has thrived on the high street since 1973, not least by always staying ahead of competitors and delivering excellent service. It’s great to be working with the company as it implements incremental improvements to continue to perform at the vanguard of retailers in terms of cost control and customer experience,” added Nadeem Raza, Chief Executive Officer, Microlise.

 

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According to a new research report by Berg Insight, the number of telematics service subscribers using embedded systems will grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 36.4 percent from 26.5 million subscribers at the end of 2015 to 170.2 million subscribers at the end of 2021. Moreover, Berg Insight forecasts that shipments of embedded car OEM telematics systems worldwide will grow from almost 13.8 million units in 2015 at a CAGR of over 25.1 percent to reach 52.8 million units in 2021. In Europe, uptake will increase rapidly due to the eCall initiative in the EU and ERA-GLONASS in the Eurasian Customs Union, scheduled to be fully implemented in 2018 and 2017 respectively.

Connected car services have evolved from being a differentiating factor to a common feature with a high attach rate among the premium car brands and are rapidly becoming increasingly common in mid-range vehicles. GM’s OnStar was launched 20 years ago and is today the market leader worldwide with more than 7.0 million paying subscribers and well above 10.0 million active users in total. BMW includes telematics hardware as a standard feature on all its cars sold in 43 markets worldwide and has the second largest user base with 3.4 million equipped vehicles. PSA is in third place and manages 1.8 million connected vehicles in Europe.

 

“Carmakers and car owners are starting to see the benefits of connected car services as a growing number of new vehicles are equipped with the technology”, said Jonas Wennermark, IoT/M2M Analyst at Berg Insight. However, the really exciting development will happen when we move from telematics services as an add-on to actually design a vehicle with connectivity in mind. Starting with Tesla, several car makers have introduced vehicles with large dashboard touchscreens and the ability to receive Over-the-Air updates. “We have also seen Volvo and Bentley launch interesting concierge services for the premium segment, such as fuel-delivery to the customer’s vehicle”, added Mr Wennermark.

 

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Click here to download report brochure: The Global Automotive OEM Telematics Market

 

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More than a quarter (27%) of transport professionals who attended the FTA Transport Manager events said they do not have the systems and technology in place to benefit from the DVSA’s Earned Recognition scheme; and a further 15% do not know if they have.

The survey findings are based on responses from more than 900 delegates who have been attending the conferences taking place up and down the country since September, finishing in Coventry this month.

The DVSA’s new Chief Executive Gareth Llewellyn confirmed in September that transport service providers will need technology in place to enable the sharing of information to take full advantage of the scheme, due for launch in 2017.

Hinging on next generation enforcement, operators will be able to achieve Earned Recognition status by sharing tachograph and maintenance data with the DVSA. Exemplar transport service providers would then not be engaged at the roadside, reducing delays and associated costs.

The survey also uncovered which technologies transport professionals feel make the biggest difference in supporting compliance; and how they gauge liability following an incident.

 

The majority (32%) felt that digital walk-around checks make the biggest difference for compliance, with driver hours visibility and alerting (24%) and remote digital tachograph download (15%) the second and third most influential technologies.

Meanwhile 66% said they use video, telematics or integrated telematics and video to gauge liability following an incident. Just over a quarter (26%) take their drivers’ word as the main source of evidence; and just 7% use an external accident investigation service.

“It’s great that almost half of those who responded at the FTA Transport Manager conferences have got the technologies and systems in place to take advantage of Earned recognition next year. But it still leaves a large proportion who aren’t sure, or know they aren’t ready,” said Matthew Hague, Executive Director – Product Strategy, Microlise. “I believe Earned Recognition will be a game changer for compliant operators – delivering a real competitive advantage for those that are ready.”

Existing Microlise fleet management solutions which can benefit operators with compliance include Remote Digital Tachograph Download, digital vehicle walk-around checks and tools to ensure optimum vehicle health and record keeping.

 

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Sergio Barata, General Manager EMEA, Telogis looks at the ever evolving nature of the professional driver

The life of a professional driver has changed dramatically over the last few years.

Gone are the days of being cast off in virtual isolation on the road. Instead, drivers are now part of a hyper-connected organisation joined up by tech, and this is allowing managers and a network of drivers to be linked in totally new ways.

One man and his truck has turned into one man, his truck and his digital network. Almost every piece of driver activity can now be turned into data in real time and then optimised for the operation’s benefit.

It’s saving vehicle-based businesses millions of pounds and completely changing how a driver operates in the cab.

But this hasn’t happened overnight. What are the steps that have got us here? And how does it affect the job role today? Here we look at the milestones that have changed the concept of a lone driver and how the driving experience has been turned on its head.

Telematics rolls into town

The first major development that connected drivers was the advent of basic telematics. It allowed managers to see where their drivers went, the miles they covered, and the fuel they spent. For the first time, drivers were now sent on jobs knowing that bits of information about their driving would be fed back to their managers.

Drivers responded by paying greater attention to the management of their vehicles, communicating with head office via traditional telephone systems to find the quickest route to get the job done.

Software hits the cab

The next step came when operators began demanding intelligent software which could provide greater insights through data aggregation and analytics.

With software-based services, managers were able to measure variables such as harsh braking, speeding and fuel consumption, with information collated and stored in the cloud for remote management. Relative to the size of each taskforce, the output was business critical data.

Enter MEM

‘Mobile Enterprise Management’ software, or MEM, connects each member of the workforce more closely than was previously thought possible. In a fleet context, it allows vehicles and drivers to communicate and interact with data in real time, gaining insights from other parts of the network which can be applied to their own vehicle.

This information, sourced from thousands of lone drivers across the network, can also be fed into other separate parts of an organisation’s network.

Whether it’s a small commercial operation or a sprawling international supply chain, mobile and the cloud can connect an entire organisation from the front line to the back end, helping businesses optimise their operations and drive ROI.

The Lone Driver 2.0

It is in this context therefore, that we are able to establish a new profile for the lone driver, combining traditional expertise with the new role as an enabler within the wider data ecosystem of an organisation

Drivers are a no longer a remote asset once they leave the conventional four walls of the enterprise.

They are now an extension of that enterprise, creating a constant stream of data and interactions which are fed back to their organisation’s operations team via a cloud-based platform, ensuring all aspects of the network are optimised.

The data driver

This means that in the modern era, lone drivers are more important than ever before.

They are responsible for creating a vast amount of this data, whether that be through logging their commercial hours, carrying out their Driver-Vehicle Inspection Report or simply driving their vehicle, generating performance data.

The future?

As technological innovation continues apace, the adoption of autonomous vehicles looks likely to represent the next major change in field operations, with some critics citing this development as the beginning of the end for drivers.

On the contrary, drivers have demonstrated their ability to adapt to technological change on many occasions already, and their longevity won’t end here. With their increased importance in the data ecosystem, the profile of the lone driver may yet change. But they will still be important as ever.

 

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In a thought provoking and perhaps slightly controversial article, Sergio Barata, General Manager EMEA at Telogis, explains why the telematics industry as we know it is on the way out.

With the prevalence of smartphones and the power now available within these devices, traditional telematics has become all but redundant he writes...

As the tech that enables the exchange of information between fleet vehicles and a central manager, telematics has been billed as a game changer for any business that uses a fleet.

But while awareness of its benefits has increased significantly recently, telematics is not revolutionary: this data and the means to understand it has been available for over a decade.

As more and more businesses wake up to the benefits of telematics there is a new kid on the block; Mobile Enterprise Management (MEM) threatens to blow traditional telematics out of the water.

Traditional telematics is archaic

Whether it’s on a truck driving through the remotest parts of Scotland or a delivery van in Cornwall, telematics data is typically created using GPS units with on-board computers.

The hardware uses cellular networks to transfer real-time data to central offices which is interpreted for effective fleet management. The data covers everything from location, movement, status and behaviour of a vehicle or fleet of vehicles to how a driver is operating them.

[quote float="left"]Whether it’s on a truck driving through the remotest parts of Scotland or a delivery van in Cornwall, telematics data is typically created using GPS units with on-board computers.

This information allows managers to get a birds-eye view of an entire field operation, checking the overall health, profitability and productivity of the fleet, whilst ensuring the workforce is operating the vehicle as intended. The headline benefits include vast fuel savings through route optimisation and increased driver and vehicle safety.

 

This is of significant benefit to any fleet-based business, but there is so much more to a mobile workforce than simply understanding the location and speed of a van or truck and what the driver does inside it.

This is because fleet managers, and those in the field now have the power to understand the mobility of an entire workforce.

Forget telematics. It’s about MEM.

Almost everyone now has a smartphone in their pocket. Deloitte puts the figure at 76% of Brits. This means that devices, workers and assets are now mobile and connected in an extremely powerful way – a far cry from the simple GPS link that old telematics hardware uses.

Added to this, more and more organisations are becoming experienced at using technologies such as Cloud and Big Data to harness insights from this mobility.

Research from Adapt claims that almost 90 percent of UK organisations now use cloud services, while the Government claims 12 per cent of companies are analysing their data. These two technologies, plus the power and mobility of the smartphone are giving unparalleled insight into operations.

[quote float="right"]Research from Adapt claims that almost 90 percent of UK organisations now use cloud services, while the Government claims 12 per cent of companies are analysing their data.

This is where MEM comes in.

 

MEM is the tech that allows all constituents of a fleet to communicate and interact with data and gain insight from it in real time.

From sprawling international supply chains to small commercial fleets, by using mobile and the Cloud to connect an organisation from the front line to the back end - and all the individuals involved between - businesses can totally optimise their operations.

This includes traditional telematics information, but also planning, navigation, routing and compliance data, and an unprecedented understanding about use of assets like cranes, plants or trailers.

And because this tech is smartphone based, iOS and Android capabilities open up possibilities for businesses even further. Think about the way consumers interact with their smartphones – an app can be created, simply, to solve almost any demand within a fleet operation.

One example is gamification products are being developed to get drivers to compete on fuel efficient driving, encourage better driving safety and fuel efficiency.

MEM can help businesses become dramatically more efficient, smarter and safer in a way that simple telematics can’t achieve.

The future

Organisations are under immense pressure to improve cost efficiency while also evolving the way they work to keep up with rapidly changing customer and employee demands.

Telematics can help bring down operating costs and is the first step in using tech to help transform a business. But to be able to stay at the cutting edge by totally optimising all parts of a mobile organisation, fleet-based businesses must forget telematics, think bigger and embrace full mobility with MEM.

 

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New findings from Juniper Research reveal that the automotive head-up display market will exceed 16 million installed units by the end of 2021, with the market anticipated to expand fourfold during the forecast period 2016-2021. 

The new research, Automotive HUDs: Innovations, Strategies & Leaders 2016-2021, found that the market will be driven by increased adoption in mass-market vehicles, with growth boosted by aftermarket HUD sales.

Juniper believes that the market will begin to accelerate in 2017 as more OEMs integrate HUDs into their medium segment cars and predicts that around 1 in 8 new vehicles will come with an OEM-fitted HUD by 2021.

AR-HUDs Promise to Transform the Market

AR (Augmented Reality) is the most exciting advance in HUD innovation with navigation and ADAS safety warnings being the biggest opportunities. The availability of sophisticated AR content could be a game changer leading to an upswing in HUD installations if drivers perceive value to the technology.

However, cost and technical challenges remain which, coupled with production delays, mean that AR-HUDs will account for less than 6% of the OEM HUD market by 2021.

Prioritising Information Critical to Safe HUD Design 

As more content is added, there is a danger of information overload for the driver, particularly in the case of smartphone-based aftermarket HUDs, where vendors seem keen to add infotainment-type content in a bid to make their products look as appealing as possible to potential customers.

“At present, there is a legal void with respect to what type of content should or should not be displayed on HUDs”,said research author Gareth Owen. “The NHTSA is currently studying HUD displays and plans to issue guidelines soon which could hit aftermarket HUD sales in the coming years.”

Other key findings include:

• Growth in the automotive HUD market could be impacted by AR glasses, which could reduce demand for HUDs, particularly in lower cost vehicles.
• Juniper anticipates that AR-HUDs could replace the centre-dash stack in the long term.

The report forms part of Juniper’s ongoing analysis of Connected Cars & Telematics. A complimentary whitepaper, ‘Head-up Displays ~ The Road Ahead’, is available to download from the Juniper website together with further details of the full research.

 

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Driver behaviour has become a key focus for many field service organisations but what are the key reasons for companies paying more attention to how their engineers are performing when on the road?

In fact the benefits of focussing on this particular aspect of field service operations are numerous, although often health and safety compliance is the primary driver with other benefits only being realised later as a byproduct of implementing a driver improvement strategy.

As Paul Foster, Director of Solutions Engineering for Telogis explains;

“There are two main aspects to driver improvement projects. One is compliance and showing that your able to keep your workplace safe.“

“At the end of the day your providing them with a tool to do the job and what you need to do as an employer is prove that your not doing that irresponsibly.”

“Safety is paramount but that can then have all sorts of knock on effects not least around costs,” he adds.

“The big thing is design for safety, but that will have its impact on costs.”

“If your engineers are driving safely then they will be driving within limits and that means that fuel consumption and vehicle maintenance on items such as tyres, brakes and general wear and tear will be reduced. In turn that means vehicles are easier to maintain and over a large fleet that is going to be very beneficial.”

 

“It also means that in operational terms you stand a better chance of having your assets available for work more of the time so it’s a win, win really.”

This is a sentiment echoed by Jeremy Gould, VP Sales Europe, TomTom Telematics.

“The management of driving behaviour for field service companies can not only enable the improvement of the business bottom line by helping to cut fuel usage, it can also help protect driver safety, the environment and a business’ brand image,” Gould comments.

“From a financial perspective, fuel costs account for a significant proportion of the total cost of ownership (TCO) of field service vehicles and, aside from vehicle choice, one of the single biggest factors affecting fuel consumption is driving style,” he explains.

Stuart Kerr, Senior Vice President, Global Enterprise Business, Fleetmatics also highlights economic benefits as a major factor for embarking on a driver improvement program.

“The economics of improving driver behaviour are staggering,” he states.

“With ROI’s of 400% to 700% the financial returns are immediate and significant. Firms assume their drivers are following the plan and order of the days activities. The reality is that every day your drivers head off into the fog and you are left with a sea of assumptions. These turn out to be false but without telematics you do not know what you are missing,” he continues.

Of course the advancement of driver improvement programmes is heavily linked to the rapid evolution of telematics technology.

 

As Kerr comments “Cutting edge telematics solutions, offer an exceptional view of field tech behaviour.

You can spend serious capital ensuring you have the optimised plan for your technician’s day but if it is not followed well or if the driving is erratic and unoptimised, a great amount of those savings will fall by the wayside.”

“Over and over we see our clients using the simple fact that ‘the truck is the truth’ to ensure that they have good data on how long jobs really take and how better to optimise the schedule going forward.”

“That often results in managers seeing a 15% jump on technician productivity and drops directly to the bottom line,” Kerr adds.

“The advance of technology is allowing us to step away from the direct management of driver behaviour,” Foster adds.

“We can now introduce systems that allow us to create self management, so if you can give a driver feedback about his behaviour without having to call him into the office every-time something has gone wrong and allow a driver to correct himself based on results that are relative to his peer group, then you’re saving cost in terms of both time and money - but it’s also a more effective way of doing things because your no longer relying on somebody’s judgement on driver behaviour and safety, your using a system that is going to plan the landscape and judge everybody by the same measure.”

“Whether you agree or not with what those measures there is no argument because everybody is held against the same standards.”

This is a view shared by Jonathan Dolby, Head of Marketing, Microlise “Technology is fundamental in improving driver standards. Telematics in particular allows organisations to measure the standards of their drivers, but subsequently empower those drivers to improve their own performance by helping them to identify any areas of weakness, for example the recording of too many harsh braking incidents which could relate to a lack of anticipation,” he comments.

 

“Not only does telematics help measure initial performance, but it allows organisations to measure improvements in standards over time, understanding return on investment from any training perhaps.”

“Furthermore, telematics helps maintain improvements over the long-term - any drivers slipping back into bad habits can be identified and mentored.”

“Advancements in technology that monitors driver behaviour and provides feedback to both drivers and managers have continued apace over recent years,” agrees Gould.

“New technology is providing businesses with the tools to make a real impact in this area by helping them to work with their drivers to improve standards.”

“Telematics technology can draw upon a wide range of actionable data, taking live information directly from vehicles to profile individual drivers or entire fleets.”

“Driver behaviour tools are of course an offshoot of telematics technology really, and we’ve seen the basic hardware become a lot cheaper, the services that go around that have become a lot cheaper and therefore more affordable to small and medium sized businesses. That means that adoption rates can go up,” Foster explains.

“There is more and more standardisation around the way data is being recorded so that we can standardise how the technology works - which again makes it cheaper to install and maintain and also the advent of connected cars on the production means aftermarket installations are going to become a thing of the past and that means we can just bolt services onto connected car movement.”

 

“With the improvements we are seeing in the technology we are not just looking at things like idle behaviour or speed but better and better hardware is giving us better insight into what harsh braking is or harsh acceleration or harsh cornering and so on. We can begin to look through more of the different aspects of driver behaviour as the hardware improves.”

Indeed the solutions today are becoming ever more advanced. “The technology available now is able to provide businesses with a complete approach to driver improvement. Pre-trip, it provides motorists with best practice advice on how to drive safely and fuel-efficiently. Direct feedback and driving advice can be offered during the trip to actively coach the driver, through technology such as our OptiDrive 360,” adds Gould.

“This technology has helped slashed fuel consumption by 10% for ventilation product manufacturer EnviroVent and by 11% for gas distribution giant SGN.

Developments in driver behaviour improvement technologies have helped revolutionise the performance and safety of mobile workforces in recent years and this trend shows few signs of abating,” he expands.

“Five year’s ago it was tough to view info on a map in real time,” explains Kerr.

 

“Now we can not only know the drivers behaviour, but we can view it in the context of the overall business. How many stops did he make today that were actual work orders? What portion of his day was spent on work orders versus other activity?”

“Firms can use modern telematics to also determine who is driving safely and who is heading towards an expensive accident. Being able to truly identify dangerous drivers and improve overall safety is a monumental shift forward.”

“Lastly, the world has gone mobile. Truly advanced telematics vendors have fully fledged, rich and robust mobile apps that run on both IOS and Android.

These provide info at the fingertips for managers and can be even be very useful to give to the drivers themselves so they can see first hand the results of the choices they make while driving.”

 

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PSA Group and TomTom Telematics have recently announced that the award-winning TomTom WEBFLEET fleet management solution will be available for all connected Peugeot, Citroën, and DS fleet vehicles.

As of next quarter, the service will become accessible in France, Spain, Belgium and the Netherlands.

Optimised fleet management

WEBFLEET enables fleet managers to make better business decisions. It helps to save fuel as well as localise vehicle positions and improves car maintenance planning. Within the collaboration between PSA Group and TomTom Telematics, the WEBFLEET platform will use the data sent by the manufacturer-fitted telematics units of Peugeot, Citroën and DS cars. This kind of alliance with a car manufacturer is a first for TomTom Telematics.

“We see an increasing number of vehicles entering the market with pre-installed mobile connectivity. Our WEBFLEET platform can provide a valuable service to the owners and users of those vehicles. Customers with Peugeot, Citroën and DS connected vehicles will now have easier access to Europe’s leading fleet management platform to help improve fleet efficiency, customer services and overall business performance,” said Thomas Schmidt, Managing Director at TomTom Telematics. “This initiative extends the relationship with PSA Group, after announcing the TomTom powered PSA infotainment platform¹ earlier this year.”

 

Brigitte Courtehoux, Head of the Connected Services and New Mobility Solutions business unit of PSA Group, added: “Our ambition is to provide customers with fully-connected vehicle fleets as part of our “Connect Fleet Management” program as well as a value-added service from market-leading partners. This innovative proposal allows customers to select services that best fit their company’s needs, helping to save time and money with an easy solution designed to significantly reduce the total cost of ownership. Collaborations like with TomTom Telematics enable us to provide a top-quality reliable service throughout Europe. In this way, PSA Group is furthering its strategy as a mobility provider."

 

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¹ This platform includes automotive-grade digital maps, TomTom’s award winning navigation software “NavKit” and its market leading live Traffic service.

 

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ACK Transport, based in Wollaston Northamptonshire, is using a unique mobile app from routeMASTER for remote monitoring of its general haulage fleet.

As a long-time customer of AGM, ACK Transport is eligible to add the recently upgraded app free of charge to its existing routeMASTER fleet control system. Vehicle progress can be pin-pointed in real time and access to the routeMASTER vehicle tracking and analysis system is possible from literally any location.

Managing Director Andrew Kevan has quickly taken to the new application: “We use the system to keep a check on vehicle locations and that’s handy when, for example, customers need to know an accurate ETA. It’s a good management tool which not only lets us monitor the vehicles but also enables us to check time sheets remotely. The app is easy to download and really simple to use. Always having my mobile to hand means I can access a host of fleet information from the minute I get up to last thing at night!”

 

ACK Transport runs an extensive curtainsider fleet and provides a nationwide general haulage service, including building products and electrical goods transport.

“With so many vehicles on the road and with multi drop delivery points,” adds Andrew” it’s also important to keep vehicle idling to a minimum. The routeMASTER system allows us to monitor each tractor for any excessive idling, which helps to keep fuel bills down and ticks a box for the environment. The cloud-based software has, for a while, played a key role in the efficient running of our fleet. This new app just makes it a little easier.”

 

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