With the official first day of summer passing us by this weekend, it’s the time of year engine overheating becomes a much more prominent issue.
Increasing temperatures obviously mean a higher risk of your engine overheating; now is a great time to check out what steps you should take to respond to this should the problem arise.
The Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) recommends if your vehicle does overheat, do not drive it more than a quarter mile further. It’s safer to have the vehicle towed to prevent more damage to the engine.
Of course, things do not always go as planned and you may not be able to get a tow truck or find a nearby mechanic. The FDOT suggests following these simple steps:
Find a safe location, pull over, and turn off the engine.
Let the vehicle completely cool or the make sure the temperature gauge has moved from hot to cool before opening up the hood.
Check the coolant, also known as antifreeze, level in the radiator; check the owner’s manual if you are not sure where the coolant reservoir tank is in the vehicle.
Before opening up the radiator cap, make sure it is cool, then slowly and carefully twist it off with a towel and watch out for hot steam. If needed, fill up the coolant to the top of the radiator and put the cap back on.
Make sure the upper or lower radiator hose and any of the heater hoses have not been disconnected, blocked or burst.
Restart the engine.
Keep an eye on the temperature gauge. If you noticed it crossing the optimal mark, find a safe location, pull over, and turn the engine off.
Getting help from a mechanic is always the best way to go, but sometimes you can’t always access one so it is important to be prepared. To stay safe, store these items in your vehicle: tool kit, coolant, non-perishable foods, water and a flashlight.
Source:
“Fleet Safety Video Tip: Engine Overheating.” Business Fleet. 2015 Business Fleet, 15/06/15. http://www.businessfleet.com/channel/safety-accident-management/news/story/2015/06/fleet-safety-video-tip-vehicle-overheating.aspx
Fuel BI is an integration from our partner Fleet Hoster that uses the information Geotab GPS devices pull from the vehicle to cross reference with information collected from a Fuel Card.
When you’re operating a fleet, fuel cards and GPS devices can empower you to take control of your fleet fuel expenditures. With the Fuel BI integration, we will automatically capture your fleet card transactions, geocode them, process them against GPS data, and provide you the results in order to better analyze your fleet fuel expenditures. Fuel card integration will help you gain valuable insights with the following tools:
Built in Geotab security settings so your managers or users can only view the data they’re permitted to
Fuel expenditure charts and metrics over user selected periods of time
Location analysis with mapping of transaction and vehicle location at the time of purchase
Gain insight with transaction mapping on where your drivers are filling up
Capture gallons purchased vs gallons actually used with fuel consumption tracking
Customized user dashboard, alerts, and charts
Works with all 4 major fuel card providers
In order to provide our customers with the best information possible we pull data from both the fuel transaction and the vehicle’s GPS data. From each fuel transaction we can determine the transaction time, merchant location, product information, and driver identification. From the vehicle’s GPS data we can determine the log time, vehicle location, and vehicle status data.
*The most important piece is the link between the fuel card provider and Geotab to identify a vehicle. A good match means that a link is successful.
*We look for vehicle logs around the time of the transaction to get GPS data.
We look for an overall increasing fuel level trend around the time of the fuel transaction.
Our fuel card integration software helps you to gain an excellent overview of fuel expenditures and provide you with the tools necessary to pinpoint any suspected vehicles or transactions to prevent fuel theft.
With an easy setup process and easy to read key performance indicators you can start tracking your fuel purchases, referencing them with Geotab data, and saving money in no time.
Our fleet management software offers an intuitive way to dispatch your vehicles to specified locations with the help of zones and third-party device integrations such as Garmin. Zones, as defined in our fleet management software My.Geotab, are geofences representing a virtual perimeter or fence around the geographical real-world area of interest. Dispatching within our software works by obtaining the zone addresses and then sending those addresses to a third parting routing device.
There are two main ways within My.Geotab of dispatching vehicles: Dispatching Vehicles to Zones or Dispatching Routes to Vehicles.
Dispatching Vehicles to Zones
Before you can start dispatching vehicles to zones, you’ll need to add some zones first into your database. We offer simple tools for creating zones which allows you to easily draw a zone shape in the area you choose. Additionally, a large number of zones can be created all at once by importing a bulk list of longitude and latitude information in an Excel sheet. After the zones have been imported, you can then start dispatching to your vehicles by finding the zone on the map and clicking on it. By clicking on the zone it will open up a list of options including one called Dispatch Vehicle Here.
When clicking the dispatch button, you can select one or multiple vehicles that you would like to receive the request. In addition, a message can also be sent with the dispatch address which can be used to provide additional instructions for the driver. After the dispatch message has been sent, the routing device will receive the address and start routing to the destination as soon as the driver reads the message and chooses to accept the dispatch instructions.
Dispatching Routes to Vehicles
Entire routes can be sent to your vehicles to dispatch a series of destinations that your drivers should reach. Creating routes in MyGeotab can be done by simply connecting multiple zones together. To send a route to one of your vehicles, select Zones & Messages from the main menu within MyGeotab and then select Routes from the sub-menu. Find the desired route from the list of available routes, and then there will be an option to send the route to a vehicle.
Dispatching has been made easy with MyGeotab. It’s a powerful fleet management tool helping you enhance your overall customer service and fleet efficiency through creating custom zones. You will have better insight to where your vehicles are, and where your drivers are headed. This will allow you to see opportunities for fitting in more customer visits, while still reducing the number of miles driven. For more details about dispatching and zone creation, please refer to Geotab’s Product Guide.
Original Article By: Dominic Loong, Technical Services Engineer at Geotab
http://www.geotab.com/blog/use-mygeotab-dispatch/
Telematics is an ever expanding and exciting field involving multiple technologies simultaneously working together to collect and present data in a useful manner for cost-savings, process, standard improvements and safety. Telematics has been around for many years, however we are now entering the ‘Golden Age’ of telematics expansion, innovation, and growth.
Industry Trends
Increase in OEM Telematics
It is estimated that 15% of all vehicles sold across the world in 2014 were equipped with OEM embedded telematics. This number is expected to grow to 50% of all new vehicles sold by 2020.
Examples of OEM telematics include:
Roadside Assistance/eCall
Vehicle Diagnostics
Stolen Vehicle Tracking
Usage Based Insurance
WiFi Hotspot
Leasing & Rental Fleet Management
Connected Navigation & Infotainment
Convenience Applications
Electronic Road Charging
The number of new cars sold utilizing some sort of telematics is forecasted to increase from 7 million in 2013 to over 68 million in 2020. Embedded telematics systems are expected to grow from 8 million units sold in 2013 to 54 million units by 2020. That’s a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 31%.
Telematics Subscriptions on the Rise
Telematics service subscription numbers are expected to grow at a CAGR of 38%. This means the amount of subscriptions will rise from 16 million in 2013 to 158 million in 2020. In the near future, the global sales of insurance telematics products are projected to grow over 2013 to 2018 at a CAGR of 80%; in 2018 the subscriber base is expected to reach 85.5 million.
Worldwide Growth Potential
(Berg Insight Forecasts)
The large growth expectation in the telematics market indicates that within the next 10 years, most of the cars on the road will be equipped with some form of telematics. In South Africa, the number of cars with a telematic system is projected to expand to 840,000 by 2017. There is an estimated 90% of the light consumer vehicles market which currently remains untapped. The Chinese telematics market is also expected to increase 22% at the end of 2014 from 2.1 million units to 5.9 million by 2019.
India’s Quickly Growing Telematics Market
(Berg Insight Forecasts)
The Indian market is projected to grow at a CAGR of 31% (From 2015-2020) and CAGR of 38% (from 2020-2025).
Telematics and the Insurance Industry
A wide range of insurance companies have already begun to incorporate telematics into their policies, taking advantage of the huge data range collected by telematics devices in the following ways:
Pay As You Drive (PAYD): Monitor where, when and how often a vehicle is being driven. This technology can provide customized policies to suit each individual’s needs. It also can monitor unsafe driving habits and can be used to reward safe driving (deeper discounts, etc).
Accident Reconstruction: Determine the driver at fault during a car accident, decrease costs related to insurance fraud and gain quicker payouts to those injured
Vehicle Recovery: Track stolen vehicles for a better chance of quick vehicle recovery.
Check out this blog for further details on insurance discounts related to telematics devices.
Safety Benefits of Telematics Solutions
As telematics continues to advance, the benefits it can potentially provide will become even more significant. Google claims that with its driverless car technology, it will reduce the rate of traffic accidents by 90%, and Volvo claims by 2020 with its new cars it will provide an accident-free driving experience. While these benefits may be years away, telematics technologies offer multiple substantial benefits for fleet vehicles and personal vehicles alike, today.
Telematics is a tool to improve safety, boost employee morale, increase efficiency and add to the bottom line of any business. You do not want to get left behind! Get your fleet vehicles connected with telematics today! Contact us for more details so you can take advantage of the full benefits of telematics today and in the future years to come.
Original Article By: Boby Multani, Senior Technical Services Engineer at Geotab
There are many people who store a significant amount of important and valuable information on their computer, such as financial documents, family movies and photos, personal music collections, and more. This large amount of data should be (but unfortunately, usually isn’t) backed up and preserved in case of data loss or theft. Each and every day there are millions and millions of data records passing through Getoab’s servers. This data is backed up in many different ways on a regular basis. This article will provide you with an in-depth explanation of how long the information is retained for and how frequently our Geotab data is backed up.
Active MyGeotab Databases
Databases currently in-use (with active Geotab GO devices, regular logins, etc.) are backed up on a nightly basis. Additionally, the previous 2 days of backups are also stored on a server in a different physical location. In the extremely unlikely event of the loss of a server, the previous nightly backups can be brought online.
Inactive MyGeotab Databases
In the effort to provide high server and because of the plethora of data stored in the MyGeotab servers, databases that are not in use are permanently removed from the servers after 60 days. A database not in use could be an empty database or one with all inactive devices.
Data Purging
Similar to the removal of inactive, empty databases to save valuable space, customer data older than one year will be regularly removed from the database. This purge, along with database deletion, is done without prior notice to customers.
How Can I Keep My Data for Longer?
Customers wishing to keep their data for longer than the guaranteed one year period are free to and encouraged to use our built-in migration tools for archiving their data.
The current Export Database function in MyGeotab can be found by browsing to Administration, System, Export Database. It is here that you can control how much data is exported. Keep in mind that the database is suspended while it is being exported. Upon completion of an export, an email will be sent requesting the export with an attached .zip file containing the exported data.
In summary, Geotab is committed to taking care of your telematics data and providing outstanding uptime and data availability.
For more information on Geotab’s data retention and backup policies, please see our standard service-level agreement (SLA). For more information on MyGeotab database Export/Migration tools, contact us at 1-888-998-1122 or [email protected].
Original Article By: Phillip M.T. Rolle, IT Systems and Security Administrator at Geotab
http://www.geotab.com/blog/long-geotab-keep-data/
Geotab relies on a partner ecosystem to allow the technology they develop to be successfully represented, rolled out, and grow with ongoing customer needs. So how does a fleet choose which telematics provider is the best fit for their needs in the short AND long term?
Here is Geotab’s view of how to find out with a quick quiz:
Question 1
Will the information that is collected for your business be used by more than one department (fleet maintenance, fleet management, sales CRM, field force dispatch, risk management, claims management, government compliance, finance)?
Question 2
Is your IT team looking to standardize the various software programs needed to run a business today (payroll, CRM) along with some industry specific programs (route scheduling, IFTA)?
Question 3
Does your company have the in-house resources to watch the overall health of all deployed data collection telematics devices – ensuring uptime of all installed units?
Question 4
Does your company have the in-house analysts to inject your collected data into your company’s evolving business objectives?
If you answered yes to ANY of the 4 questions, Geotab may well be your best choice of a technology solution to rely on. If you answered yes and have already deployed with a different telematics provider, we would be happy to talk with you about making the switch. As a business, your freedom to operate and evolve is essential and that’s what the Geotab telematics operating system with GoFleet’s partnership approach is all about.
As a Geotab partner we resell their technology with additional applications and services; while also offering a business partnership approach and working with you on a regular basis. We take pride on never once having a customer who has not saved more money than our solution cost them and work closely with all our clients to ensure this high level of return on investment is maintained.
As an Authorized Geotab Reseller, we receive routine weekly training on best practices in deploying Geotab technology, business case studies, new features, and upcoming developments on the horizon. Geotab works with us daily to ensure our high level product knowledge and performance is maintained.
For businesses, there is a fog of telematics companies who on the surface appear to offer the same features and functions. But focus on the 4 questions and think of how together we will provide new business intelligence for you to use to grow and increase revenue.
Contact us to learn more about the partnership approach we take with each of our customers, and how we can generate the return on investment you are looking for.
Original Article By: Colin Sutherland, VP Sales & Marketing at Geotab
http://www.geotab.com/blog/finding-right-geotab-partner/
Fleet Consultants Help You Improve Fleet Management
Many companies are already well aware that implementing a telematics fleet management system is very useful in terms of security, cost reduction, and quality of service offered to their customers. Unfortunately, there are many cases where they lack the necessary experience to implement these solutions within their organization. This can be anything from training on how to effectively communicate to drivers and unions about the system, management process changes, demos of how to achieve ROI, and other necessary training activities. For these reasons, our fleet consultants offer professional services to our customers.
Understanding company challenges, technical goals, and requirements are some of the key responsibilities our team takes on. Our highly trained fleet consultants help our customers during these processes in the following ways:
Business Case Production: Analysis of KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) and customer needs, recommendations, and demonstrations of the functionality of the solutions.
Change Management: Communication programs such as management training and how to properly introduce GPS tracking to your drivers.
ROI Consulting: Benchmarking in multiple areas, demonstrating substantial savings, tracking obtained improvements, and detecting non-compliance areas.
Various Training activities: Different levels of training for various departments (eg. management, admin, middle managers, and best practices manuals to maximize the systems benefits).
One of the most common activities for our fleet consultants is the demonstration of tangible benefits during a pilot program. This can be a challenging activity because benefits should be demonstrated with a reduced number of vehicles and drivers in a relatively short period of time (typically only one or two months). This is the best way to demonstrate the solution benefits to the potential customer. Benefit areas depending on the company can be quite different and can vary depending on customer activity and targets.
The most typical areas of potential benefits (KPIs) are:
Maintenance: Consistently servicing on time to reduce wear & tear
Day-to-Day Efficiency: Improved daily operations through reactive planning and detailed route analysis.
Route Planning: Reduced travel time through optimization, visualization and measurement.
Utilization: Use percentage, amount of time at location, straying from job site.
Out of Hours: Tax compliance and proper overtime validation.
Risk and Duty of Care: Driver behavior such as speeding and idling, monitoring CO2 emissions, lowered insurance.
Fuel: Reduce use through details on consumption, and identifying idling and driver behavior.
GoFleet works along side our customers to help measure their KPIs in order to improve driver and fleet performance, and ultimately achieve the desired ROI.
Get in touch with one of our fleet consultants to find out
how you can optimize your business and save money:
Original Article By: Antonio Venutelli, European Solutions Engineer at Geotab
http://www.geotab.com/blog/professional-services-can-help-companies-improve-fleet-management/
Rolling out a large fleet can be slightly more complex than installing the devices in 5-10 vehicles. But, if you take the right approach with a mix of planning, monitoring and resources, it will help you complete the rollout on time and achieve the quality results you’re looking for. The guidelines below will help you better manage your project and provide a general overview of the items it is important to consider.
Objectives
Communication is key; all project objectives should be effectively communicated and understood by everyone involved to make sure the roll-out is on the right track from the start.
These include:
Outlined reasons for the implementation – what needs to change?
Determine short and long term goals
Understand the ROI results that are expected to be achieved
Relate to our 5 main pillars to consider the main focus:
Fleet Optimization, Productivity, Safety, Expandability, Compliance
Create measurable objectives
Planning
Quite often, certain key factors are overlooked, which can have a negative effect on a project before it even gets started. There are many elements to consider when planning a deployment of Geotab GO devices in a large fleet:
Recognize the scale of the project: identify whether it is a national or local rollout, single or multiple locations, and the number of vehicles.
Determine who is involved: from administrative staff to project managers, ensure each individual knows what they are responsible for and has the skills necessary.
Communicate effectively: share documentation within your product team and actively communicate.
Shipment/Delivery of Equipment: Ensure realistic shipping and delivery times are taken into consideration when determining the dates of installation.
Installation Schedule: When planning a large rollout, creating an installation schedule is key. You will need to consider the following: number of installers/team members doing the install, vehicle variations (necessary harness), locations, estimated time per install and vehicle availability.
Example of an installation schedule:
Once installation is complete, it is important a training schedule be put together. We offer training sessions Monday, Wednesday and Friday every week at 2pm EST and you can have your entire team join the sessions.
Kick Off Meeting
Before the rollout, setup a meeting to review the implementation plan to ensure everyone is working towards the same expectations and achieving the same goals. It’s also important to clearly set out how changes throughout the project will be communicated and handled between all parties involved. Additionally, this meeting allows you to discuss any concerns your team has and additional items that you may not have considered.
Track Progress
You want to keep the project on track and meet deadlines as best as you can. The better you keep to your deadlines, the faster the rollout, the faster you’ll start to achieve savings and increase the productivity of your fleet! It is common to have changes occur throughout the deployment of the devices but as long as you effectively manage these changes you should still be able to stay on track. Hold weekly meetings to keep everyone informed and address any problems.
A completion tracker can be a great way to keep track of of the planned versus actual progress for both the rollout and training. Check out the following example:
Follow-Up
About a week after rollout, we will set up a time with you to evaluate performance. We will ensure you have everything you need to move forward and will determine anything else you may need from us. We are happy to set up monthly reviews with you to look at ROI results and set up new goals moving forward.
Keep the project simple, set realistic milestones and expectations, deliver on time and keep everyone informed. And don’t forget, we are here to help as much as you need! We take pride in getting our customers up and running as fast as possible so they can start realizing just how much time and money can be saved with our solution.
Contact us to speak with one of our trained fleet consultants: 1-888-998-1122 | [email protected]
Original Article By: Laurelle Flewelling, Account Manager at Geotab
http://www.geotab.com/blog/rolling-out-large-fleets-with-geotab-go-devices/
Because of the wide acceptance by consumers of telematics devices, our industry has been rapidly growing. In 2014 160,000 subscriptions were added by Geotab alone, and the 100,000 unit goal of previous years has now been upgraded to a goal of 1,000,000. Of course, with great success along comes big responsibility. Our competitors will remain the key to increasing customer value and innovation, but in order to minimize risk and maximize potential, the cooperation between leading players will become equally as important.
Here are three examples that help explain that point:
Product Safety: Telematics solutions save lives and advance safety through promoting better driving habits and generally improving the awareness of road safety. Therefore, it’s no surprise that telematics solutions are not only embraced by fleet operators and businesses but also by emergency response units, police forces and insurance companies. Promoting product safety through design, production and installation processes with safety in mind is extremely important to enhance and protect the industry’s reputation and address critics. Some of whom unfortunately have their own plan. The more providers can learn from one another and develop strong standard, the better.
Patent Litigation Involving Non-Practising Entities (NPEs): Patent lawsuits from non-practising entities, notably in the USA, have become a part of life in the telematics industry. While there has been a lot of talk of patent reforms NPEs are still going strong. The most recent verdict against cyber security from Symantec is just one example. Patent litigation is expensive and the more providers of telematics that can pool their resources to ward off patent enforcement outfits the better for everyone.
Cyber Security: The digitization of nearly every element of society and the rapid adoption of the “internet of things” (IoT) has brought up major concern of data and cyber security to the forefront. It seems a day cannot go by without reports of a big hacking incident. Some of these issues can have complex implications as competing interests such as privacy vs. national security, create irritating dilemmas. Others, like acts of ultra-sophisticated acts of state sponsored cyber warfare, may cause people to throw up their hands in distress. Neither are reasons to do nothing. Non-controversial security practices are very effective in minimizing the overwhelming majority of threats. And there is no question that: in the interest of better security, cooperation will help all players just the same as a bad headline will harm everyone.
Geotab and GoFleet are committed to growth through competition and innovation. But, at the same time, Geotab is proactively engaging in issues related to product safety, patent litigation, and cyber security with the strong belief that these issues require solutions industry-wide to be able to better position the industry and instil confidence in our end customer base as a whole.
Original Article By: Dirk Schlimm, Advisory Board Member at Geotab
http://www.geotab.com/blog/better-together-competing-cooperating-way-future/
In the USA, it’s estimated there are around 22 million employees who are put in the category of having low morale at work which works out to an estimated 350 billion dollars in added costs to businesses every year. [1]
It is frustrating for management to continually oversee defeated, disgruntled and downhearted staff and can also translate into an uncontrollable (yet avoidable) expenses. An increase in staff turnover, decreased employee productivity and worker absenteeism all contribute to the costs businesses are burdened with.
The lack of recognition for hard work, time away from home, and the difficulty making a living are what professional long distance drivers often cite for the reasons they do not recommend their occupation to others [2]. The industry is also predicting a shortage of drivers due to the fact that many baby boomers will be soon retiring from their driving positions [3]. This makes maintaining a happy and satisfied workforce a prominent factor to saving on employee related costs for any fleet company.
What can fleet managers do to cut these costs,
and how can telematics contribute?
Infinite data is provided from telematics systems to analyze, learn from, and be effectively utilized to cut down costs. Often, savings from altered driving habits can be passed on to the drivers themselves if they are exposed to the knowledge base the analysis can provide. If savings can be realized by the drivers themselves, as well as the organization, a reason for work dissatisfaction is minimized. Further to this, transparency with data by an organization is both welcomed and appreciated by workers [4]. Telematics provides an avenue for organizational higher-ups to recognize the importance and value of their fleet drivers.
With such independent and isolated work, it can be challenging to recognize and reward loyal and top performing employees to provide pride and motivation. Telematics systems provide you with strong metrics and flexibility to narrow down and track the exact type of behaviour to reward while providing clear goals for drivers to find motivation in. For example: recognizing and even rewarding drivers with the least number of a specific exception violation will provide management the awareness they are seeking. As an added bonus, the fleet assets as well as employees will be safer overall.
Additionally, employees with clear expectations within the organization will reduce stress they endure [5]. Using Telematics to translate “efficient”, “safe” or “compliant” driving expectations into measurable actions eliminates any confusion in the employee-management relationship. In turn, this will uplift the quality of drivers’ work, helping to reduce stress, and increase satisfaction with their job.
Telematics is a fleet management tool that can be used by businesses to realize financial gains as well as increased productivity, optimization, safety and compliance [6]. However, there is also the opportunity for fleet managers to dive deeper and use telematics as a tool to curtail defeated, disgruntled and downhearted staff. Use the substantial capabilities of our telematics to boost the employee-employer relationship, increase employee morale, and eliminate the manifestations of staff dissatisfaction that can be detrimental to any organization.
