Time is money: Reducing vehicle downtime with IoT

Blog authored by our partner, Tangerine. Tangerine is an AI-powered data analytics company for smart mobility, offering solutions for fleet management, shared mobility, and insurance telematics.

For transport and logistics companies, every wasted minute of vehicle downtime has a profound effect on their margins. Luckily, thanks to technological developments in the IoT sphere, investing in downtime reduction solutions has never been easier.

By seamlessly integrating IoT sensors with a fleet management platform and telematics, you’ll be able to extract and sort relevant vehicle data more quickly and efficiently. This ensures real-time visibility into key metrics, such as fuel economy, vehicle and engine health, real-time location, driver behaviour, predictive/preventive maintenance history and much more.

Staying ahead of the competition

IoT-enabled telematics provide a competitive edge for fleet owners by automating operations on a cloud-based platform, giving a real-time holistic view of your fleet. This real-time view offers more flexibility for fleet managers, with valuable data feeding in to the allocation of resources, improving planning and providing insight into operational efficiencies. The integration of IoT with fleet management also improves visibility into any specific vehicle issues, enhances predictive fleet maintenance, and helps improve driver operations while also reducing costs.

Predictive analytics: Stop downtime before it starts 

Harvesting the right data means you can proactively solve issues before they become a real problem. IoT-enabled fleet management technology helps fleet managers embrace predictive analytics, by providing the necessary data to achieve proactive management.

Urgent alerts and notifications can be sent to the fleet manager if a portion of the vehicle requires repair or is near to failure. IoT-based predictive vehicle maintenance prevents any vehicle component from abruptly breaking down. The device also sends low battery alerts and regular motor maintenance notifications, controls temperature variations, and other features to keep vehicles operating safely for a longer period of time.

Fleet operators obtain all the necessary data to monitor several vehicle-related metrics. You gain a significant competitive advantage over competitors in several key operational areas, by detecting when to:

By addressing any issues before they cause downtime, you’ll be avoiding not only lost revenue but also high vehicle repair costs.

Reduce maintenance costs by monitoring vehicle health

Vehicle health monitoring solutions bring a variety of incredibly helpful benefits for a busy fleet manager. The monitoring and retrieval of fault codes and engine performance data helps inform decisions around fleet maintenance as this information can immediately be shared with the fleet owner/manager, allowing any problem to be addressed immediately.

Faulty components can cause increased fuel consumption and higher emission rates, and the longer these problems persist, the more it will cost in the long run. IoT-integrated telematics capture valuable vehicle diagnosis data such as pneumatic and hydraulic data then utilizes predictive maintenance to keep the fleet in shape, with constant monitoring. Any issues related to the vehicle are spotted, addressed immediately and costs can be minimized.

Depending on the size of the fleet, sudden breakdown or vehicle failure can cost millions of dollars and have severe impact on business operations. By leveraging telematics to predict fleet maintenance needs, fleet managers can immediately detect an issue and fix or replace parts before the problem gets too expensive.

Telematics can also be used to optimize vehicle routes and vehicle utilization, which reduces fuel costs and decreases idle times.

Down the road

What does the future hold? The application of innovative IoT solutions continues to change the transport sector. Real-time vehicle tracking is increasingly becoming the norm as maintenance costs, fuel costs, and driver safety remain major concerns for fleet managers.