VEHICLE recovery will soon no longer be the main revenue source of the vehicle tracking industry. Companies like Tracker, Cartrack and Matrix say the installation of onboard tracking devices is now merely the first step in a more diversified “big data” industry.So profound is the change that Wayne de Nobrega, CEO of market leader Tracker, says it will soon make sense to install devices for free.Information gleaned from devices is already passed on to companies like TomTom and Google, enabling them to alert users to traffic conditions. Now recovery companies say their data could also be sold to urban planners, advertising agencies, marketers and financial institutions. Insurance companies are particularly anxious for information.De Nobrega says telematics devices in clients’ vehicles feed back about 35m pieces of information to his company’s computers each day.Cartrack deputy CEO John Edmeston says: “The market you can find for all this information depends on your imagination and cre...
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