In recent years, fleet management has developed into a multi-billion dollar industry, and it continues to grow in significance concerning the world of transportation. Although the fleet management industry has been around for a long time, new technology has made it much more efficient in recent years. Good fleet management software can make it much easier for companies to reduce vehicle risks, provide better services, and coordinate their vehicles to lower operating costs. Here are some of the most important trends on the horizon in the world of fleet management, which you are very likely to see in the coming months.
The Development of the 5G Network
The 5G network is not just a typical upgrade from 4G, because at its best it can be 100 times faster than 4G, and is capable of providing much higher bandwidth to connected networks. The technology associated with 5G will allow a great many more devices to be simultaneously connected, and it will permit a great many more connected devices to be online, thus demonstrating the maximum potential of the Internet of Things (IoT). Another innovation associated with the 5G network is that it will allow self-driving cars to be much safer because they’ll be able to make split-second decisions based on traffic situations. It will also allow self-driving cars to connect with other cars and with streetlights, making it easier to react to traffic issues.
Continued Development of GPS Tracking
GPS tracking and telematics are technologies that help fleet managers monitor diagnostics in real-time from a dashboard customized for the purpose. It will allow fleet operators to identify the locations of their drivers, the status of their vehicles, and it will also make it possible to see how safe their drivers are being on the road. A big trend coming in the near future will be for fleet maintenance to integrate voice capabilities, to make greater use of artificial intelligence, and to provide more capabilities in the area of data analytics. Telematics is a technology that can provide many benefits for fleet managers.
For one thing, it can help keep drivers safer, and it can help keep members of the public safer as well. It can increase productivity by using the most efficient routes and improving efficiency. Telematics also makes fleet management easier, because it can minimize damage, reduce operating costs, and have a major impact on driver behaviors. It can also help decrease costs to your company by making vehicles and drivers more fuel-efficient, and wasting less time. As telematics and GPS tracking continue to develop, the benefits they provide to fleet managers will continue to grow and increase the value of the technology.
Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS)
There are projections for MaaS to increase to approximately $150 million by 2025, as opposed to around $50 million in 2019. From the user standpoint, MaaS provides transportation access through a single channel for payments, as opposed to having multiple payment operations with multiple ticketing. To meet customer demand, fleet management trends in the world of MaaS supports a number of transport options which can include car rentals, taxis, and other types of public transport. The only thing holding back explosive growth in the MaaS arena is the cooperation of transport service operators with platform operators. When the feasibility of MaaS business models improves along with access to transportation services, Mobility-as-a-Service will really take off in the world of fleet management.
Autonomous Vehicles
One of the more fascinating fleet management trends is the rapidly improving capabilities of autonomous vehicles. In the recent past, vehicle automation technology was strictly a process on research and development drawing boards, but these days more fleet vehicles can be connected through emerging technologies. Things like Wi-Fi, GPS, the 5G network, the virtual cloud, and data sharing, have all made it possible for automation vehicles to become more of a reality than a drawing board scenario. Very soon, a fleet that is totally connected will have the capability of detecting, identifying, and diagnosing issues that might crop up to interfere with the operational efficiency of any fleet vehicle. It is known for instance, that something like 90% of all accidents today are triggered by driver errors, and this coming fleet technology will significantly reduce the numbers of these accidents, and save many lives as well.
Fully Connected Vehicles
This may seem a bit like pie-in-the-sky, but industry experts agree that it is a very real possibility we will see autonomous cars that make extensive use of telematics to allow vehicles to communicate. This will facilitate a much greater level of spontaneous route changes, as well as more precise updates on location. It will also be possible for vehicles to communicate with repair shops and display any kind of maintenance alert so you can setup appointments for maintenance and repair. It will also be possible when fuel is running low, to automatically navigate a vehicle to the closest fuel station in the area, and even to choose the station which has the lowest fuel cost within a selected area.
Augmented Reality
If you haven’t heard of augmented reality, it consists of a view of the actual world which is augmented by video from computer-generated sources. As it applies to fleet management, augmented reality will provide helpful information to drivers, such as signaling when there are any kind of obstacles in the roadway, thus increasing the safety factor. Augmented reality might also be able to provide features such as using the windshield as a display screen to show traffic alerts or to identify obstacles.
It might be possible to project the speedometer onto the windshield, so a driver doesn’t have to look for a gauge on the dashboard. In that same vein, color-coding could be displayed to alert the driver to the fact that they are in either a green, yellow, or red zone, so the driver knows when to slow down. It might also be possible to connect augmented reality with existing telematics technology, so you can project directions onto a windshield, along with arrows that inform a driver where to make turns.
