MiX Telematics has set out its vision for the coming three to five years, based on its conviction that fully-supported open and expandable telematics platforms are set to become the industry-norm for transport operators. While demand has initially been driven by the heavy commercial vehicle sector, including both truck and bus/coach operators, MiX Telematics is now also witnessing more and more light commercial vehicle and car operators turning to telematics in order to drive up the efficiency, performance and safety of their fleets.
“With a presence in more than 120 countries, MiX Telematics has a unique insight into global transport operator trends, needs and demands,” says Marc Trollet, Managing Director of MiX Telematics Europe and North Africa. “A shift to open in-vehicle platforms is undoubtedly coming as it allows fleets to scale the technology to meet their needs. This is becoming increasingly important to operators as solution providers such as ourselves and our partners continue to develop more and more innovative ways in which on-board technology can be used to their advantage.
“However, the technology on its own is not enough and close cooperation between operators and their suppliers is essential if the full range of benefits is to be realised. This is why we have built a specialist in-house consultancy team to work with our customers every day and support them with customised products and business intelligence insights. In our opinion, the days of the fit-and-forget suppliers are numbered.
“While the heavy commercial sector is sure to be at the vanguard of developments, our light commercial vehicle business has also increased significantly over the past year or so. Currently, most light duty vehicle fleets typically require the basic telematics features, such as asset tracking, mileage, MPG, and driver behaviours for safety, but we are confident they will follow the heavy sector by progressively introducing other services, such as in-cab camera technology, to enhance the safety of their drivers out on the road.
“Completing the picture are mobile apps. We already offer a range of apps to serve the needs of customers on the move, and with more and more people now using their mobile devices as their primary source of interaction with web-based services, this is set to continue and develop further.”
Enhancing safety with in-cab technology solutions
MiX Telematics believes the coming years will see a sharp uptake in the use of on-board technology designed to promote safer driving and thereby reduce road risk:
- In-cab video monitoring is set to become a significant growth area for on-board vehicle technology with systems such as MiX Vision, which typically feature both forward- and cab-facing cameras, capturing video footage and sound to provide a visual and audio record at the time of an event. In-cab video also provides visual evidence to enhance driver behaviour coaching and is very useful in determining responsibility when an inccident occurs.
- Collision avoidance solutions will alert drivers to blind spots and objects which may become a potential accident.
- Driver fatigue solutions designed to alert drivers and managers that fatigue is setting in, will help them determine if rest is needed before continuing to drive.
These technologies complement and enhance the established safety solutions which focus on driving behaviours such as harsh acceleration, hard braking, speeding and corner handling.
By combining the data from one or all of these solutions into one system, the user will have information which leads to actionable safety intelligence. This allows the fleet to gain new insights as to what is causing accidents and to become more pro-active in order to avoid future incidents.
