Reduce your fleet costs with Tracker’s new AI services

The consumer price inflation rate was recorded at 7.8% in July 2022 — the highest reading since May 2009 (8%) — underpinned by recent, significant fuel price hikes. Though fuel prices were reduced in September 2022, bringing some relief to overburdened consumers and businesses, the knock-on effect of these increases will continue to affect budgets.

“A company’s fleet is often the second largest expense for a business, after its people, without even accounting for inefficiencies or lost productivity from traffic delays or the expense of being involved in an accident. In a high-inflation business environment, proactive fleet management is essential to curbing costs. Technology plays a pivotal part in addressing this,” says Kobus Visagie, business solutions executive at Tracker. 

Through vehicle telematics innovation and expertise in stolen vehicle recovery, Tracker has used its aggregated data, analytics and insights to develop technology that delivers services focused on proactively optimising fleet logistics and driver safety.

Two of Tracker’s new services facilitate informed business decision-making, with a focus on process efficiencies driving greater satisfaction for your customers — unlocking revenue potential while addressing cost savings and driver safety.

• Tracker AI Dashcam for real-time fleet and driver monitoring using front and driver-facing cameras and artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms to identify risks on the route and mitigate irresponsible driving behaviour that could otherwise lead to costly accidents.
• Tracker Track & Dispatch IQ monitors and reports on your ground resources, while effectively managing delivery exceptions and reviewing holistic driver metrics for performance tracking. This supply-chain management solution offers bird’s-eye visibility from origin to destination, enhancing efficiencies and giving insights that can lead to reduction in costs and superior customer experiences.

“Tracker AI Dashcam is an integrated, dual-camera device that faces both the road and the driver and can recognise event triggers such as speeding and accidents, and various AI triggers, like fatigue and distraction. All this information is uploaded to a secure, online, cloud-based portal, giving you and the drivers real-time alerts, supported by video footage.” 

In the event of an accident, the context provided by the captured footage means fleet managers can determine the circumstances leading up to, during and after an accident. This results in a factual claims process and a reduction in fraudulent or invalid claims, including the possibility of exonerating drivers when they are not to blame.

Should a truck crash into the back of a car, liability would ordinarily be on the truck. However, with the intelligence provided through the footage captured by the Tracker AI Dashcam, it can be determined whether other factors may have led to the collision such as aggressive driving on the part of the car driver, swerving or coming to an abrupt halt in front of the truck for no obvious, safety-related reason.

“The benefit of AI-enabled dashcams is incident management, leading to cost management,” says Visagie. “Accident avoidance through real-time alerts combined with coaching can reduce accident risks significantly. This can result in lower insurance premiums through reduced claims and a reduction in associated downtime.

“No matter the size of a business, one can save time and money and even lives by implementing AI-enabled dashcams. To further mitigate risk associated with managing a fleet, Tracker’s Track and Dispatch IQ improves driver safety through predictive alerts and updates. The service facilitates and automates decision-making in your supply-chain process and automatically pushes daily dispatch plans while taking your customer’s satisfaction into consideration by providing updates.” 

Visagie says by using Tracker’s interactive dashboard, a fleet manager will obtain real-time transport analytics and insights and better visibility of resources and performance.

“There is no need to wholly rely on human intelligence and intuition. The system automatically creates plans that are data-driven. These include an intelligent route-planning engine, which will automate route allocation and provide the optimal time of day for travel to reduce fuel consumption by avoiding traffic congestion as much as possible. It will also provide alternative route suggestions considering real world constraints such as roadblocks and road restrictions.”

This route mapping accuracy will result in a consistent delivery schedule and the geocoding capabilities ensure that even the most illegibly written addresses obtain precise co-ordinates to improve delivery accuracy and reduce failed deliveries.

With Tracker, real-time analytics can be accessed by the management team, which enables a comparison between planned and actual performance, highlighting areas that require improvement. Using the data, businesses can optimise their operational efficiency, which will benefit the customer and help the business to manage costs.

By automating processes, businesses can be optimised to deliver at scale. This will assist fleet managers to obtain higher asset utilisation, better driver communication and seamless interactions with shippers and warehouses. Moving stock more quickly will also reduce storage requirements and the costs associated with this.

“Tracker is committed to helping companies run better, and there has never been a better time to take the available data in your business and make it work in your favour to ensure your business continues to weather the challenging economic climate.”

For more information visit: www.tracker.co.za.

This article was paid for by Tracker.