There’s a lot of telematics companies out there these days with more and more arriving on the scene and even major telecoms companies looking to get in on the act. While before it was easy enough to pick the best of the best, now we’re somewhat spoilt for choice which can make choosing a provider that bit harder. However BusinessCar has done some heavy research and come up with its favourites, the top of which turned out to be ALD Automotive with its Profleet telematics service.
One of the main reasons for it being given such a high mark, was its ability to help fleet managers keep track of fuel usage across all of their vehicles. This feature, named Fuelmonitor, is a small part of Profleet, but was instrumental in leading to ALD Automotive getting top marks for its telematics platform. It provides incredibly accurate fuel information, such as monitoring and usage predictions and doesn’t require any sort of invasive installation of specific hardware on any vehicle.
Of course along with fuel monitoring, Profleet also tracks other aspects of the vehicles, such as driver skill – including how much heavy acceleration, braking and turning they do – along with CO2 output and overall vehicle efficiency. This is combined with indirect features like allowing the managers to keep track of where the vehicles are at all times, which means sending employees to job sites more quickly, as well as more efficiently.
If you splash out for the ProFleet2 system, you’ll even have the ability to weed out any issues with out of hours vehicle usage or fuel fraud, by keeping an eye on exactly how much fuel is put into the vehicle as well as how much goes out of it. This is cross referenced with any charges put on company credit cards, allowing for incredibly in-depth tracking and analytics.
This system also has benefits for drivers that don’t try and game the system, as they’ll always be reimbursed the correct amounts for fuel usage, rather than having to collect receipts and/or be given amounts based one estimations of fuel usage. It can even allow for potential driver training for those that have a bit of a heavy foot and need to be taught how to use less fuel while on the job. In the end, this leads to safer, better and happier workers, while saving the business money. It’s a win win for everyone.
Of course though, while ALD Automotive was voted the top service, it did have some close competitors. Notable mentions also go to Satmo’s telematics system which allows fleet managers to compare vehicle speeds with speed limits in the local area (in real time and in retrospect) as well as Tom Tom’s WebFleet system, which has a self-install tracking device and digital mileage tracking, along with all the usual behaviour monitoring and calculations.
The question of course now though is do you guys agree? And if not, which telematics services would you recommend to other readers?
