Install and use telematics

You can use the information provided by telematics systems to support your transition to an electric fleet. These devices are often provided by employers and insurance providers to enable vehicle tracking. Telematics devices are sometimes called a “black box” because of their appearance.

Telematics systems can provide high quality fleet data. You can use this to monitor your fleet and this can help you transition to zero emission vehicles. Telematics devices can be hard wired to vehicle engines, plugged into the dashboard, or be in the form of an app on the driver’s phone.  

Installing telematics will give you access to a range of data on your fleet. This can include: 

• Exact energy consumption for each journey.
• Journey lengths in time and distance.
• The condition of your vehicle.

We recommend installing telematics systems that provide this information. 

Benefits of telematics: 

• Better fleet monitoring. 
• Recording exact vehicle energy usage and costs, including kWh in electric vehicles which is otherwise difficult to monitor. 
• Safety features including automatic collision notifications, emergency assistance requests, and tracking systems. 
• Monitoring how well operators are driving. This could be combined with Green Driver Training. 
• Monitoring the condition of vehicles, which reduces service, maintenance and repair costs. 

It’s becoming more common to have telematics installed. However, you need to understand how to take advantage of all the data a telematics system provides. Some of the better telematics systems give you access to portals which present fleet data in different ways. This will help to better inform your decisions and allow you to pick out trends. Having access to these portals will also complement the other benefits outlined below. 

Telematics for the transition to battery electric vehicles

You can use the information provided by telematics systems data to support your transition to an electric fleet. 

This can be done by: 

1. Getting accurate maximum daily mileages to see whether this exceeds battery electric vehicle range on a single charge. 
2. Developing an accurate charging infrastructure plan based on how often vehicles need charging. 
3. Incorporating public charge points into route planning using GPS. 
4. Calculating the true range left on a battery by taking external conditions into account, such as elevation, traffic, and weather. When the battery is low, the driver could be notified and directed to the nearest public charge point. 
5. Providing specific cost and carbon savings to justify further zero emissions vehicle adoption. 

This information is often displayed on telematics portals. However, we recommend downloading the raw fleet usage data for a deeper analysis. This will allow you to explore specific areas in more detail and make full use of the data collected. Analysing the raw data will require more time, technical skills and possibly additional software. But it’s worth doing as these insights will be specific to your fleet and tailored to your decarbonisation objectives.