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Crystal Collections, the UK’s premier responsible debt servicing company to the motor and asset finance industry, has improved driver safety with in-depth feedback provided by Masternaut’s intelligent telematics system. By improving the understanding of its fleet of recovery vehicles and trucks, Crystal Collections has made a 20% saving on fuel expenditure.

Masternaut’s telematics solution has enabled Crystal Collections’ drivers to use the software’s powerful routing capabilities to find the quickest way to a job. Likewise, fleet managers have a real-time view of the fleet at any time and can dispatch the closest driver to a job, whilst managing client expectations by giving them up to date information on when drivers will arrive.

In understanding how its fleet is driving on an ongoing basis, Crystal Collections has managed to reduce instances of idling, speeding and aggressive handling.

These aspects contributed to Crystal Collection being recognised for its social impact, with the company winning the Wales Responsible Small Business of the Year Award in 2013.

Business Development Director at Crystal Collections, Rhys Hellen, said Masternaut has helped fleet managers achieve their goal of ensuring drivers’ hours and conditions are monitored accurately in accordance with health and safety legislation, and to better understand and improve driver behaviour to create a safer working environment for staff and other road users.

[quote]“With excellent customer service and social responsibility at the heart of our offering, it was vital for us to have a solution that can help us provide better feedback to customers and improve driver safety,”

“With excellent customer service and social responsibility at the heart of our offering, it was vital for us to have a solution that can help us provide better feedback to customers and improve driver safety,” said Mr Hellen.

 

“The reports and data provided by Masternaut has provided us with the means to monitor and improve driver behaviour, whilst simultaneously reducing the amount spent on fuel. The solution has helped us to go the extra mile for our clients, with our customer service team able to give detailed feedback to our clients. Having this level of detail to provide our clients has really helped us to improve satisfaction.”

Martin Hiscox, CEO of Masternaut, added “Crystal Collections’ is a great example of how telematics can be used for much more than vehicle tracking. The company has used telematics to create a safer experience for drivers and other road users, with the end result being a drop in fuel use. We’re delighted to have been able to help them achieve this and to have contributed in helping Crystal Collections to win a prestigious award in the process for its social impact.”

 

Field Service News Editor Kris Oldland, speaks exclusively to TomTom Telematics Director Giles Margerison about the challenges Field Service organisations are facing today, what tools field service managers are able to employ to overcome these and whether there is such a thing as an off the shelf solution in field service management solutions.

Find more videos, features and resources featuring  TomTom Telematics in the Field Service News Directory by clicking here

Ford Motor Company and Telogis launched "Ford Telematics powered by Telogis" yesterday, providing actionable information from Ford commercial vehicles that helps customers reduce fuel costs up to 20 percent^*, reduce their environmental impact and increase driver safety.

Since 2011, Telogis has been the exclusive technology provider to power Ford Crew Chief in North America, the industry’s most comprehensive and scalable telematics solution for commercial customers. The European expansion of the Telogis-Ford partnership leverages the success of Crew Chief and will meet the demand from current and new Ford customers for visibility into day-to-day operations including vehicle/driver location, vehicle and driver performance and exclusive Ford vehicle diagnostics.

“Ford of Europe is delivering on customer demand for visibility, cost savings and safety with Ford Telematics powered by Telogis,” said Bill Frykman, manager, business and product development at Ford Motor Company. “Telogis is our trusted partner, and the success we’ve had with Ford customers in North America made them the only choice for Ford’s European platform offering.”

Making its debut at the 2014 IAA Hannover Commercial Vehicle Show, Ford Telematics powered by Telogis will be available to fleet customers as a dealer-installed option in selected European markets, offered through Ford’s network of specialist Transit Centers, and is warrantied and serviceable at Ford dealerships throughout Europe.

“The launch of Ford Telematics powered by Telogis in Europe is an extension of what has become the industry-standard in OEM telematics in North America,” said Greg Dziewit, vice president, OEM business at Telogis. “Making this offering available to Ford’s European customers will help them run more efficient, cost-effective and safer fleets and transform the way they do business.”

Based on the real-time data, the Ford Telematics powered by Telogis software platform delivers a comprehensive range of actionable business information that enables fleet managers to operate their vehicles in the most efficient way and to help ensure drivers are following safe and economical driving practices.

“Ford Telematics is another example of Ford facilitating the delivery of smart technology to help our customers enjoy the highest quality, safest and most sustainable operation of commercial vehicles available today,” said Steve Barrow, commercial vehicles service operations manager, Ford of Europe.

Demonstrations and more information about the Ford Telematics powered by Telogis offering can be by visiting the Ford stand, Hall 13, No. C54 at the IAA Commercial Vehicle Show which opens later this week in Hannover, Germany.

 

In the wake of a BBC Panorama documentary highlighting the dangers of cognitive distraction among motorists, TomTom Telematics Director UK & Ireland, Giles Margerison, considers what road risk means for fleet managers and how it can be best managed.

More people than ever before are now being convicted for causing death behind the wheel of their motor vehicle – and the consequences of this for businesses can be severe.

Back in 2007, there were a total of 233 convictions for causing death by dangerous driving. That same year the offence of causing death by careless driving was introduced – and according to the Ministry of Justice, by 2013 the number of convictions for death caused by both dangerous and careless driving had reached 310.

In light of these statistics, and the alarming fact that around a third of all road traffic accidents are believed to be work-related, businesses need to take the management of road risk extremely seriously.

The long arm of the law

Employers, after all, have the same duty of care obligations for their mobile workers as they do for all their office site staff. The Health and Safety at Work Act requires them to ensure, so far as is reasonably practical, the health and safety of all employees while at work.

What’s more, the legal implications of the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act should provide all the motivation needed for service fleet managers to ensure adequate road risk management systems are in place.

 

Courts can impose unlimited fines for Corporate Manslaughter convictions and the damage to a company’s reputation could have even graver implications. In addition to corporate exposure individual criminal charges, including manslaughter, can be brought against directors or ‘thinking minds’ of an organisation.

 

As for field service employees, under sentencing guidelines a driver can face up to 14 years behind bars for death by dangerous driving.

The Health and Safety Executive’s advice is clear – companies should ensure work-related road safety is integrated into wider arrangements for managing health and safety at work. To ensure risks are effectively managed they must address their health and safety “policy, responsibility, organisation, systems and monitoring”.

Fostering a safety culture

Simply ensuring drivers hold valid licences and that their company vehicles have valid MOT certificates is not enough to ensure their safety. Beyond the introduction of a company-wide health and safety policy, organisations must strive to achieve a cultural shift among their employees to make sure policies are adhered to. This is where fleet management systems have a big role to play – helping enforce behavioural changes and significantly modifying driver attitudes.

On a basic level, telematics can be used to monitor the number of hours a driver spends behind the wheel and enforce a policy of regular breaks. This however is just the tip of the iceberg, with driver performance tools allowing managers to monitor the behaviour of their mobile workers – providing data on factors such as speed, fuel consumption and even harsh steering or braking.

A survey by road safety charity Brake discovered people driving for business purposes are more likely to take risks on the road than the general driving population. For example, more than half (54 per cent) admit speeding on 60mph limit roads, compared with 34 per cent of non-work drivers.

Helping the driver

What’s more, the importance of being able to monitor and act on such data was highlighted in a recent BBC Panorama documentary that examined the dangers of cognitive distraction.Professor Paul Atchley, Cognitive Psychologist at the University of Kansas, revealed that drivers using hands-free device mobile phones, for example, suffer from a mental workload and that reduces their ability to deal with hazards on the road, increasing the likelihood of crashes.

 

Telematics systems that automatically send job details and route drivers to customer locations via integrated in-vehicle navigation devices can reduce this mental workload. They also empower drivers them by feeding live performance information to their in-vehicle navigation devices, enabling them to change their behaviour in real time.

 

In the office, managers can use the performance data to build accurate profiles for every driver and identify where their strengths and weaknesses lie, allowing training to be tailored to suit individual requirements. The opportunity to measure driver performance in a sustainable manner following training sessions also becomes a reality, protecting the business investment in meeting duty of care obligations.

Scotia Gas Networks (SGN), for example, reduced incidences of negative driver behaviour (speeding, harsh steering, braking or acceleration) from 1,600 a day to less than 400 after implementing teleamtics technology.

Although there can occasionally be resistance from staff with such systems involving in-depth performance analysis, this can be overcome if they are positioned correctly and implemented with employee involvement.

Consultations should be held with staff throughout the process and open lines of communication maintained. Incentives offered for improvements in performance can also result in healthy competition among staff.

By understanding their obligations and committing to road safety, service companies can stay on the right side of the law, safe in the knowledge they have secure business future.

The team at Telogis have certainly been busy over the summer with major partnerships with Volvo, Hino and Ford all announced…

Telogis & Hino Trucks

Hino Trucks have recently announced a partnership with Telogis to exclusively release Hino INSIGHT. The platform is a next-generation solution hailed to be a fully comprehensive, web-based location and telematics solution built specifically for the medium-duty commercial truck market.

Hino INSIGHT 2.0 has been developed as part of Hino’s ongoing strategy of building an offering that gives their customers a much improved total cost of ownership (TCO), including better vehicle uptime and user experiences.

Launched within the last few months Hino INSIGHT 2.0 will be standard fit on 2015MY Hino 195h and 195h-DC hybrid models, and as an option on the 195 and 195-DC models and the full conventional truck product lineup.

Commenting on the collaboration Glenn Ellis, Vice President, Marketing, Dealer Operations and Product Planning for Hino Trucks said:

“This next-generation technology brings new functionality, a refined user interface and a robust platform to support the needs of our largest fleet customer or an individual owner-operator,” said Glenn Ellis, Vice President, Marketing, Dealer Operations and Product Planning for Hino Trucks. “Telogis’ significant investments in R&D and product innovation plus its experience in the OEM environment make them the standard for excellence in the connected services industry.”

Telogis & Volvo Trucks

Indeed Telogis are fast becoming a part of the furniture in the road haulage industry, with Telogis now also bringing built-in compliance, telematics and navigation services to Volvo Trucks customers in North America.

Volvo customers are able to access Telogis’ services via smartphones and tablets by leveraging Volvo’s integrated connected vehicle hardware, standard on new Volvo-powered Volvo trucks.

It is also available for the existing 60,000 Volvo trucks already equipped with the connected vehicle hardware, making the Telogis platform ideal for all-Volvo or mixed fleets.

In commercial trucking’s evolving legislative and regulatory landscape, Telogis’ offerings for Volvo Trucks help drivers and back office teams manage FMCSA compliance and keep drivers safer by delivering electronic log tools and routing information that is specifically designed commercial drivers.

“We’re pleased to collaborate with Telogis to deliver tremendous value to motor carriers seeking flexibility and the robust information needed to fine-tune their operations,” said Göran Nyberg, president, Volvo Trucks North American Sales & Marketing.

“Leveraging the connectivity of our vehicles to facilitate fleet management services represents a breakthrough for fleet managers, who are no longer captive to hardware. As part of our long-term strategic focus, we’ll look toward further integration of our vehicles with best-in-class fleet management solutions.”

“With increasingly complex compliance regulations and the need to more effectively manage safety, productivity and costs – telematics, compliance and navigation software are no longer a ‘nice to have’ – it’s now a ‘have to have,’” said Susan Heystee, executive vice president, worldwide sales at Telogis.

“The ability to easily access mission-critical tools and information from the Telogis platform will transform the way Volvo Trucks’ customers do business.”

Telogis & Ford Crew Cheif

Moving from trucks to vans we also find Telogis once again appearing in one of the largest launches of the year.

This time its in partnership with Ford Motor Company and their launch of the all-new 2015 Ford Transit line of vans – perhaps one of the the company’s largest, most significant commercial vehicle launch in their history.

Telogis is the exclusive technology provider behind Ford Crew Chief, the market-leading, light-duty commercial telematics solution that comes factory-fit in Ford’s lineup of 2015 Transit vans as well as its complete line of commercial light-duty trucks. Ford Crew Chief powered by Telogis again aims to home in on the growing awareness that telematics solutions can help fleet managers and commercial vehicle owners reduce costs, improve driver safety and optimise operations.

“The 2015 Ford Transit, America’s newest Built Ford Tough van, will no doubt become an essential part of any commercial fleet, and with Ford Crew Chief powered by Telogis added in, customers receive a whole new level of visibility into their daily operations,” said Bill Frykman, manager, business and product development at Ford Motor Company.

“Ford Crew Chief, another example of Transit’s smart features, complements the Transit line by helping customers save money through fuel management, and more effective route and work planning; keep their drivers safer by understanding and coaching driver behavior; and improving overall operations by getting a big-picture view of maintenance, location and productivity.” 

One of the worlds leading companies in specialised fleet management payment cards FleetCor have significantly increased their role in the European fleet management sector by acquiring one of Europe’s leading telematics providers Masternaut.

The acquisition, which was made in partnership with growth equity firm Summit Partners, will open up huge cross sales opportunities across both customer bases with Masternaut rapidly becoming an acknowledged leader in the telematics industry across the whole of the Europe, whilst FleetCor themselves already have an enviable footprint amongst European companies who operate a fleet via the proliferation of their fuel cards.

Masternaut’s rise to prominence has been both swift (the company is less than 20 years old) and impressive with the organisation now boasting over 300,000 vehicles and people connected to the their SaaS based solution. More than 15,000 users interact every hour with the systems, and over 50 million data transactions are processed into 20,000 reports on a daily basis.

One such customer, Irish gourmet sandwich provider Deli-Lites Ireland, recently announced that they have been able to increase delivery performance by 14% after bringing on board the telematics provider. Fleet managers for the Irish firm are now able to gain a far more accurate picture of the performance of their vehicles including the amount of fuel used, MPG, and run times.

The impact has been impressive, with co-ordination challenges minimised and impressive fuel savings of 10% already being witnessed alongside Deli- Lites Ireland now having the ability to accurately measure the temperature of vehicles remotely, something, which is of course a huge factor for any food delivery company.

A further benefit to Deli-Lites Ireland is being felt in their HR division where they have implemented a driver-training plan to further improve driver performance.

This is a route that many other companies need to follow according to research from Masternaut themselves. 70% of companies surveyed admitted that their employers do not offer any such training. This is despite the fact that in the UK legislation is now in place to ensure that driver standards are being constantly monitored and improved.

In fact the same survey revealed 40% of British drivers were unaware of the legislation and remain in the dark on how their employers intend to monitor and improve their standards.

When we consider that a fifth of respondents also stated that they have had an accident whilst driving for work and that when asked who would be liable for such an accident, 80% said it would be their responsibility, while 20% thought an accident would be their employer’s, the need to build better understanding of such driver improvement programs and increase participation becomes even greater.

Martin Hiscox, CEO and chairman of Masternaut, commented,

“Driving for work is recognised as one of the most dangerous occupations and these findings clearly demonstrate a vital need for employers to educate staff on safe driving practices. There is a clear need for this to happen and the technology, the tool-kits for training, monitoring and improving driver behaviour all exist. The insurance industry is spending £2.2bn in claims annually, processing over 792,000 claims for commercial fleet insurance. This is the tip of the iceberg when you consider on-costs, downtime and the cost to businesses that self-insure.”

“It raises a bigger issue for employers about not having visibility of their mobile workforce, so they can ensure they are safe and can put steps in place to spot problems and deal with them. The Telematics industry is making huge steps to help the commercial fleet but even now we are surprised that so few employers are offering their staff the chance to take driver training, to ensure they’re kept safe whilst on the road and helping them be safer and more efficient.”

With such savings at stake and governments across Europe clamping down on poor driver behaviour, FleetCor’s move to firmly become an active part of the telematics industry through their acquisition of Masternaut couldn’t be better timed.

This was certainly echoed in FleetCor Chairman and CEO Ron Clarke’s comments at the time the merger was announced.

“We are delighted to team up with Summit Partners in acquiring Masternaut. In a short period of time, Masternaut has developed the best-in-class telematics product and a pan-European footprint. We at FleetCor have valuable fleet customer and partner relationships in Europe. Combination of the two would allow us to deliver more value to our clients, differentiate our product offerings, and ultimately grow our businesses.”

 

City West Works was established as a subsidiary of City West Housing Trust in April 2013 and carries out maintenance works on the housing association’s 14,600 homes across West Salford.

In its first year, the City West Works carried out almost 50,000 repairs jobs and answered more than 150,000 calls in its service centre.

The challenge

City West Works has a range of tradesman from roofers to electricians working in their team, all playing key roles in maintaining strong customer relations and working to improve customer homes. With many tradesmen on the road daily, City West Works needed a solution that could not only track their location but help reduce CO2 emissions and rising fuel costs.

The solution

Masternaut offered City West Works a solution that could provide benefits above and beyond simple vehicle tracking. Masternaut’s solution can monitor for poor driving habits through a points system where drivers are scored against vehicle economy and driving behaviour, alerting them to any bad manoeuvres they make.

Co-ordination challenges were also minimised with at-a-glance visibility of vehicle whereabouts at any given time.

The outcome

Since implementing Masternaut’s solution, City West Works has seen economical improvements in employee driving habits.  The solution has been installed across 105 of City West Works’ vehicles, with a plan to extend the contract for another two years.

Managers receive weekly email reports that accurately monitor and record the behaviour of their drivers and determine those who are exhibiting the best driving performance. Poor driving habits such as harsh; cornering, breaking, acceleration and speeding are all measured and put forward in these reports. Managers can then approach drivers performing poorly and discuss ways of improving their driving with guidance from Masternaut. These reports not only helped the managers gain a good overview of their team’s driver behaviour but also aided with their KPIs.

The Masternaut solution also provides an additional HR benefit with managers being able to remotely monitor their employees’ location in real time therefore providing added security. The solution can also help provide evidence against claims where customers state a tradesman has not turned up to a job.

Commenting on the results John Ashworth, Facilities Officer at City West Works said:

“Cutting down CO2 emissions and reducing fuel costs have been high priorities for us. We’ve saved just short of £17,000 in fuel alone and reduced CO2 emissions by 40.6 tonnes thanks to Masternaut’s solution. The reports Masternaut provide us with allows managers to see how drivers are wasting fuel and put a stop to this. Since April last year we have also started receiving a second report from Masternaut on a month to month basis showing how much fuel and Co2 savings we have made.

We chose Masternaut following a full process and when compared against competitors, Masternaut was the overall better choice against other tenders.” 

 

Giles Margerison, TomTom Telematics’ Director UK & Ireland, considers how field service firms can best organise their resources to cope with the holiday season.

The arrival of summer usually receives a warm welcome on these shores but that's not to say it's without its challenges.

Field service companies, in particular, face the often taxing issue of ensuring service levels don't drop below expected standards during a period of resource instability.

The need for smart planning to cope with staff holidays is made ever more pressing by the continued growth of the service sector, as economic recovery keeps gathering pace, and the shift from a transactional to a relationship economy.

Customers expect higher standards of customer service and expertise from field workers than perhaps ever before and those companies capable of meeting this demand will be best equipped to thrive in an increasingly competitive marketplace.

Data as the foundation for good planning

Of course, good service delivery relies upon effective planning. On a basic level this means coordinating holidays with expected workloads to ensure staffing and skills levels remain sufficient through the summer period.

But there is a need for organisations to become ever more sophisticated in order to cope with the changing face of the UK economy and this is where 'big data' can help.

Armed with the appropriate data, it is possible for field service companies to work out how many jobs their staff are able to attend in a day, accounting for factors such as time spent on the road journeying between jobs.

For example, using routing and scheduling software integrated with real-time data from telematics allows working schedules to be optimised, planning each mobile worker's day to ensure they spend as little time as possible out on the road.

Once work schedules are finalised, the details can be sent to each worker's in-cab navigation device, with navigation automatically loaded to send them along the quickest route, taking into account the effect of traffic flow, roundabouts, traffic lights and other obstacles.

Shifting scheduling from static to dynamic

Variables such as traffic or the emergence or unexpected, urgent call-outs can throw a spanner in the works, hence the need for  dynamic methods of planning.

Rather than setting workflow schedules in stone at the start of each day, field service organisations might be better served by planning on the fly with real-time information in order to make better use of resources and ensure the absence of staff isn't felt.

As such, telematics systems are able to make use of live traffic information to provide accurate times of arrival. If a worker gets held up severely by traffic or a delay in their previous job, the next most appropriate colleague can be dispatched in their place, or at the very least customer expectations can be managed.

Similarly, in the case of emergency call-outs, the system will automatically allocate the best-placed person to take the job, according to the time it will take them to arrive on site, rather than merely distance.

Dynamic schedules can also be tailored to complete both high-priority call-outs and low-priority, scheduled appointments in the most efficient manner. For example, if a worker is called to an urgent job on the same street where a regular visit is planned for later in the week, it often makes sense to complete both jobs at once, reducing the number of man hours wasted.

There's an app for that

Such dynamic scheduling takes into account staffing levels, availability and a host of other factors to ensure the available resources are most efficiently used but doesn't necessarily address any skills shortage that might occur when temporary staff are drafted in during the summer months to help service demand.

However, you’ll be pleased to know ‘there's an app for that'. The remarkable acceleration in the development of business technology means mobile workers can now benefit from a number of applications designed specifically to take advantage of logging workflow and process on one device, which makes their lives easier.

These apps, for example, allow the driver to conduct daily vehicle checks on their driver terminal or tablet device, ticking off each element on a pre-defined list before the details are sent automatically to the office for their records.

Once this is completed, the driver's workflow can be automatically loaded to their device, with navigation queued up for each job as necessary.

Upon arrival at a site, the worker will automatically be sent full details of the job along with any manuals that are required, ensuring they have the requisite knowledge at their fingertips.

There is such a range of technological solutions now available that companies can ensure whatever system is implemented will be tailored to the precise needs of the organisation, the industry and the customer.

End-to-end business systems, which build a seamless link between field and back office, remove the element of uncertainly that might have previously surrounded summer staffing and allow field service companies to deliver year-round, uninterrupted, first-class service.

 

Masternaut, one of the largest European providers of telematics solutions, has announced the MT400 telematics hub which has been designed exclusively by Masternaut’s dedicated R&D team for Masternaut’s Connect platform.

The MT400 delivers unprecedented levels of connectivity, modular applications, and over-the-air device & application management. Masternaut’s patented technology for Vehicle CANbus data acquisition is fully integrated so that real time, accurate odometer, fuel, diagnostics and other floating car data can be extracted for reporting and telemetry applications such as driver behaviour, risk profiling, crash detection, and remote diagnostics.

The MT400 can integrate directly with tachographs, temperature control units, salt dispenser units, weighing sensors and other on-board vehicle equipment. All of this data & control is seamlessly integrated with Connect to provide accurate and flexible reporting, alerting, visualisation and control. MT400 can connect to smartphones, tablets, and other screen devices for rich driver integration features including navigation, messaging, workflow, etc.

MT400 is designed using latest automotive grade electronics and mechanics to provide best-in-class performance and reliability, with a streamlined installation and in-field support process, minimising vehicle installation times, and ensuring devices can be fully managed remotely.

Alex Rothwell, Masternaut’s CTO comments “The MT400 transforms in-vehicle solutions and is a step-change from current “black-box” technology. It is the culmination of substantial R&D investment, building on Masternaut’s patents and know-how from 10 years designing market leading telematics devices.

“To ensure our customers get the most out of Connect, they need flexible in-vehicle solutions which provide the telemetry, vehicle system integration, and driver interaction demanded by advanced telematics applications. MT400 addresses this need, and with a new automotive grade design also provides superior performance and reliability.”

Martin Hiscox, Masternaut’s chairman and CEO, added  “Masternaut is unique within in the industry in that we design and develop all components of our core service ourselves, from hardware right through to SaaS-based end-user applications. Our vision is clear, and by structuring the development process in this manner – and supporting it with the largest telematics R&D team in Europe – it is our responsibility to execute it.

“To ensure our customers get the most out of Connect, they need leading hardware which is not only versatile enough to support our full suite of modular applications, but which delivers business intelligence based solely on absolute vehicle data. The introduction of the MT-400 technology as standard provides even greater accuracy for our customers, enabling them to get even more return on their telematics investment.”