Vehicles have been generating data at a furious pace for years. Today, the amount of data coming from the engine control module alone is mind-blowing. “Over 30 computers generate over 2,500 messages per second,” says Ryan Barnett, director of market development for XRS. “We have seen up to six terabytes of data per year per truck running through a test on our Relay [device].
“That being said, fleets will only be interested in data that matters to their operations. We end up using between six to eight megabytes of data per month, looking at items like mpg, speed, idle time, hard-braking events, high speed/hard brakes, rpm, odometer, fuel, used fuel, cruise [control usage],engine workload, engine coast and fault codes,” he notes. “We also look at driver behaviors like stop times, hours-of-service data, completed inspections from electronic DVIRs (driver vehicle inspection reports), and driver-entered data.
“For the future, the truck will continue to add more data to the engine control module that onboard vendors should be able to utilize,” Barnett adds. “Safety systems like collision avoidance, roll-over detection and lane departure [warning] systems are sending data through the J1939 protocol that we can pick up and report on. Auxiliary systems like tire pressure monitoring, trailer hookups and PTO usage can create meaningful data that can be used to drive behavioral change. As the ‘Internet of Things’ grows, including the number of sensors throughout all areas of the truck and supply chain, the amount of data will infinitely scale.”
“There has been a kind of data explosion out there,” observes Tom Dorazio, senior product manager for PeopleNet mobile solutions. “Fleets are demanding so much more from the vehicle. Today, we can carry a whole lot more data to and from the vehicle, even video. It opens up new opportunities as devices and networks get more compatible.”
Systems are indeed becoming more compatible and more integrated, but there is more to be done. “Onboard, there is still a big data consolidation and collection challenge,” observes Tom Flies, COO for Cadec. “Cadec has been focusing on that. There are still systems on the truck that don’t talk to other systems. Fleets are crying out for someone to consolidate all that data output and make sense of it. They need the new onboard technologies to stay competitive, but you have to use them or they can become a liability [because you have access to information you are not acting on].”
If you look at telematics and how systems have evolved, he continues, collecting some pretty basic information could make a big difference in your operation in the early days of telematics. Now fleets are beginning to take information from the truck and trailer and combine it with information about other environmental or external factors such as the weather, or traffic flow—things outside the driver’s control—to put vehicle data into a more meaningful and, hence more useful, context.
Flies offers an example: “Some time ago, I was looking at idling time by terminal for a fleet,” he says. “One site was idling far more than any of the others, so I thought, ‘This will be easy. I’ll just tell them to shut the trucks off.’ It turned out that the terminal was in northern Wisconsin where the temperature had been 20 deg. F below zero, and the trucks had no engine block heaters. They had to idle. Putting the onboard data into context completely changed how the data appeared and what action was appropriate for the fleet to take.”
Rabbit ears vs. cable
Mike McQuade, chief technology officer at Zonar Systems, notes that the ability to put onboard data into a meaningful context by combining it with data from other sources and analyzing the total package is what gives big data its promise. He calls this bundling of data “contextual data.”
“Collecting more data around a given data point can help you to understand things,” he says.
“Suppose the anti-lock brake system activated on a truck. You might blame the driver, but if additional data from the headlights and windshield wipers shows that they were both on at the time, and that the ambient temperature was below freezing, bad weather and slick highways may have been a major factor. Event-driven data collection provides better information, meaningful context.
“Once data gets into the cloud, you can put it with other data and [readily] do a mash-up,” he says. “The whole concept of big data is to collect more than you think you might need because you can use it later, and analytics can present it in ways that allow you to see it.
“For instance, suppose you expect drivers to average about 7 mpg on a given shipping lane. You gather mpg data, look at it monthly long after the fact, and the numbers don’t look too bad. Look a little deeper, though, and you notice that one driver is only getting 4.5 mpg,” McQuade says. “If you collect a little more data, you may see that the turbocharger is going bad on his truck and performing poorly, impacting fuel economy. If you have that data in real time, you can route the driver to a shop for repairs right away rather than letting the truck run badly for another two to four weeks.
“Look at that lane again and with enough data available from the vehicles, you may also see that 25% of your drivers are getting 7.5 mpg, but 75% of them are only getting 6.5 mpg,” he continues. “Why?
“Old telematics systems are like rabbit ears on a television,” McQuade illustrates. “You can only see a few channels. Upgrade to a cable system and you can have 200 channels, many in high-definition. Suddenly, you can see lots more if you choose to look. The channels are there for you.
“Having more data that you can see if you want to is like having more channels on your television. You may have data you want to watch all the time and data you have never even looked at yet, but the additional information is there,” he says. “Take one more look at that shipping lane, for example, this time with data on shifting patterns, and suddenly something you missed entirely before is right there in front of your eyes: The 75% of drivers who are getting poor fuel economy are not shifting properly as they go up the steep hills on that route. Now you can act to fix the problem. You can give those drivers more training on how to shift on a hill, or you can start spec’ing automated transmissions. Access to data has changed how you manage your fleet, maybe even altered your equipment buying patterns to improve performance. That is the whole promise of big data in our world. It can help companies manage more efficiently.”
Using more data
Fleets are indeed beginning to look at more vehicle data and to use it to do more things, according to the latest Survey of Fleet Operator Interest in MRM (Mobile Resource Management) Systems and Services from C.J. Driscoll & Associates. While monitoring the location of fleet vehicles is still regarded as the most important benefit of using a GPS-enabled fleet management system, monitoring driver performance for safety and fuel efficiency is also now considered by a significant percentage of fleets as an important benefit. This is followed by reducing idle time/fuel consumption, optimizing routing, and helping to better manage maintenance and repairs.
What’s more, fleets surveyed reported a very high level of satisfaction with the fleet management systems they are using (the average satisfaction rating was 4.1 out of 5 possible points) and 67% noted that they had recouped their investment in the technology.
Many fleets surveyed had quantified their benefits in terms of dollars and were willing to share the results. One private fleet of 120 vehicles specializing in food delivery reported a $167,600 savings per year in fuel and mileage plus another $127,400 in driver time. A larger municipal fleet of 2,200 vehicles reported an overall cost savings of $100,000 per month.
“[Some companies in] the telematics space are not afraid to collect data that can do things for people without breaking the bank,” says McQuade. “Imagine getting it all for less.
“Say you moved to a new town and the local cable company said, ‘You can have 10 TV channels or 200 for $80. Same price, you choose.’ What would you do? Would you take just 10 because that is all you watch anyway, or would you take the 200 channels and then build processes around using all that extra information, that extra data?” he asks.
“Some people will say, ‘That’s just too much data. I can’t look at all that,’” McQuade continues, “but that’s where analytics comes in. Advanced analytics can be used to look at the channels or data for you and advise you. Systems can tell you what information is important. They can surface the information that matters. Telematics plus big data plus analytics is the new way.
“A system that works properly will bubble up insights for you—things that you don’t even know to ask,” McQuade continues. “Analytics converts data into insights. It is not about big data; it is about big answers. Access to [big answers] gives your company a competitive advantage. You don’t want your competitor to have tools that are 10 times better than you have because they’ll outperform you.”
“Looking ahead, businesses will use the new information to create better, safer and more efficient supply chains by having even more insight into driver behavior and vehicle performance,” adds Ryan Foisy, telematics program manager for WEX. “For example, they will have real-time support around crashes and more intelligence about vehicle breakdowns, both of which increase safety and productivity. As more businesses realize the benefits, we believe the adoption of telematics will continue to increase.”
New solutions
New telematics solutions are already out this year. Navistar and Omnitracs, for instance, recently unveiled Fault Monitoring Optimized by Navistar OnCommand Connection. This new offering leverages data from Omnitracs’ Fault Monitoring application, combined with a user interface developed by Navistar. In near real-time, the solution is designed to deliver more than 8,000 action plans based on vehicle fault codes. The goal is to help fleets increase vehicle uptime by supporting quicker repairs, tracking repair progress, and controlling maintenance costs.
The solution, which will be available to fleets with all makes of vehicles and engines and Omnitracs Mobile Computing Platform onboard technology, also includes a dashboard. It is designed to provide fleet managers with access to vehicle health reports, weather, fault description and location, and time of the fault via the user interface or email notifications. In other words, it presents vehicle data points wrapped in additional data about things outside the vehicle itself—or relevant context.
Telogis recently introduced Fleet 11, the company’s latest upgrade to its cloud-based fleet management platform. “It merges big data with intelligence to create business transformation,” says Mark Wallin, vice president of product management for the company. He describes Fleet 11 as having three parts or categories of benefits: connected location intelligence, driver behavior monitoring and actionable analytics.
“Connected location intelligence really brings together information about vehicles, workers, other assets and partners,” Wallin explains. “Telogis Live [introduced earlier] connected users; now we are enabling them to selectively share data back and forth with customers on one map. Users can restrict and share information as they wish. For example, think about a utility company working with a variety of contractors during a severe storm response situation. It may be that the utility company can’t deal with downed power lines until the tree removal company clears the trees across the roadway in a given area first. If they can all work off the same map, it can greatly improve recovery coordination and reduce time and effort.”
V2V and V2I
If it seems like fleets have pushed data collection and analysis just about as far as it can go, nothing could be further from the truth. The industry has just scratched the surface.
At PeopleNet, for instance, Randy Boyles is keeping a watchful eye on advances in safety and efficiency as well as on cargo and vehicle security. “Most companies can recover a stolen vehicle,” he says. “Some can remotely keep a truck from restarting. Cargo security is not on the front burner now, but I am afraid [because of some incident in the future] it will be.
“I am also particularly interested in safety and efficiency,” he adds. “Vehicle-to vehicle (V2V) communications are coming, although vehicle to infrastructure (V2I) communications will probably be first.”
Boyles is right. Systems such as automated tolling and weigh station bypass systems using transponders, which have been around for some time, could be counted as V2I. PeopleNet itself also just announced that the Drivewyze PreClear weigh station bypass application is now available on PeopleNet onboard devices with a complementary weigh station cost-analysis tool, nationwide Weigh Station Heads Up notifications, and a bypass service subscription option.
Alan Korn, director of vehicle dynamics and control for Meritor Wabco, also sees V2V and V2I communications in the not-so-distant future—and Meritor Wabco has been very involved in making that future a reality. “There are studies running now on vehicle-to-vehicle communications for cars and trucks,” he says. “Meritor Wabco is involved in a test now in Ann Arbor. Imagine vehicles sharing data machine-to-machine about the speed of a vehicle ahead of the vehicle you are following but cannot actually see, or about vehicles or other objects or people in your blind spot or about actions at intersections where visibility might be blocked.”
In early February, in fact, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) announced its intention to require cars to send and receive signals transmitting their speed, position and heading as well as other information, in other words, vehicle-to-vehicle data sharing in real time. NHTSA says it believes the technology could prevent up to 80% of the accidents not related to drunk driving or mechanical failures. And this is just the beginning of V2V.
“We are seeing people want to combine more and more data from more and more parts of the organization and share it in meaningful ways,” Wallin says. “It is going beyond just the vehicle to the workers, jobs, forms and customers.” It is indeed.
